BIDEN’S FOREIGN POLICIES
AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
BY: JP HONG
RESTORE AND
REIMAGINE
PARTNERSHIPS
President Biden announced that he will
regard internationalism and diplomacy as
the basic foundation of his governing.
Biden has already made a number of
foreign policy decisions that give a sense
of what that might look like. He’s playing
things cautious, recovering the policies
that his predecessor put in place. Yet,
Biden has not engaged in any major
reversal of the United States’ investments
in the Middle East.
While committing to renewing the New
Start nuclear nonproliferation treaty with
Russia and stopping U.S. support for the
war in Yemen, Biden ordered airstrikes
against Iranian-backed fighters in Syria.
He also engaged in regulating China as he
had promised.
However, experts do not expect any
radical ideological departures from Biden
as he is focused on the “domestic
agenda,” minimizing any capital to be
spent on foreign policy issues.
ELEVATE DIPLOMACY
The Biden administration confirmed that Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia had
ordered Khashoggi’s killing in 2018, and yet Biden did
not directly impose any punishment. Biden’s press
secretary, Jen Psaki, clarified that the administration
decided to impose sanctions on the royal guard unit
that was responsible for the killing but not the royal
family itself. She stated that a diplomatic strategy
would help prevent similar issues in the future.
The administration is emphasizing “counterpart-to-
counterpart conversations” rather than continuing
Trump’s “go-it-alone” approach. Biden gave the first
major indication of his presidency that he would be
willing to use military force in the Middle East if he
considered it justified, showing his willingness to
maintain a responsive military presence in the Middle
East by ordering retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-
backed fighters in Syria. In response to the strikes,
Iran declined a third-party invitation to join the
United States in diplomatic negotiations.
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