![]() They also point out that Biden’s team hasn’t lifted sanctions the Trump administration placed on the ICC. Biden’s detractors compare that to Trump’s decision to sell $8 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia, even after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the 2018 murder of US resident Jamal Khashoggi. Take Biden selling $200 million in missiles to Egypt, a country led by a dictator who has routinely violated human rights, jailing thousands of political dissidents and killing hundreds more. What Americans have gotten instead is a Biden foreign policy that echoes Trump’s more than progressive critics like. Now, Taeb and others are essentially saying, “I told you so.” They argue that two months into Biden’s presidency, it’s clear that “complete, fundamental shift in US foreign policy” hasn’t happened yet. “I hope they recognize that the vast majority of the American people have rejected establishment foreign policy and the trajectory that we’ve been on for decades.” Donald Trump gives a thumbs-up sign through the window of his car. “Americans are looking for a complete, fundamental shift in US foreign policy,” Yasmine Taeb, a senior fellow at the progressive Center for International Policy who’s leading the left’s critique of Biden’s team, told me at the time. As Biden formed a team to do just that, progressives I interviewed couldn’t mask their displeasure. In December, I wrote a story about how Biden wanted the US to pursue a traditional, post-World War II foreign policy to defend the “liberal international order” - essentially the diplomatic and economic rules and norms that run the world. The case for Biden’s foreign policy as the same as Trump’s, briefly explained Any claims that they’re the same are incomplete at best. While there are some similarities between the two presidents, Biden and Trump have extremely different foreign policies. It’s a provocative case, but it’s not very convincing. Stephen Miles, executive director of the progressive foreign policy group Win Without War, recently told Politico that “There’s this fear of being attacked on the right of not being tough enough on China or Iran or other issues.” The problem, he adds, is “there doesn’t seem to be as much concern about the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party.” ![]() That critique is coming from a small but vocal chorus of analysts, activists, and noted commentators like Noam Chomsky. In effect, they argue that US foreign policy right now is Trump’s with Bidenesque characteristics. Sure, the tone has changed - namely, talk of rebuilding alliances and defending democracy and human rights - but much of the substance remains the same.įor example, Biden has taken an adversarial stance toward China and Russia sold billions in weapons to a dictator in Egypt kept the economic sanctions Trump imposed on Iran and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in place declined to sanction Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his role in ordering the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and is unlikely to drastically slash the Pentagon budget. It goes something like this: Two months into his administration, Biden is pursuing many of the same objectives as his predecessor. There’s a growing argument, coming mostly from the left, that President Joe Biden’s foreign policy is essentially the same as former President Donald Trump’s.
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