Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that the U.S. is in a “much stronger geopolitical position” under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris — despite several global conflicts and rising multi-national tensions.
Blinken has overseen U.S. diplomacy across the globe as wars have broken out in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and as tensions with American adversaries abroad have dramatically increased. As he seemingly prepares to leave his post in January, Blinken wrote in an op-ed for Foreign Affairs on Tuesday saying that the U.S. is in a far better position than it was under the former Trump administration, and outlined what he believes should be American foreign policy going forward.
“President Biden and Vice President Harris pursued a strategy of renewal, pairing historic investments in competitiveness at home with an intensive diplomatic campaign to revitalize partnerships abroad,” Blinken wrote. “The Biden administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago.”
Blinken argued that Biden and Harris were hampered when they took office by the former Trump administration’s legacy on foreign policy and diplomacy, which he says had been signaling to other nations that the U.S. was in “irreversible decline.”
“They saw an American public that had lost its faith in government, an American democracy that was polarized and paralyzed, and an American foreign policy that was undermining the very alliances, international institutions, and norms that Washington had built and championed,” Blinken wrote.
Blinekn said that though Biden and Harris have made substantial progress, there is still “unfinished” work to attend to. The U.S. must continue to strengthen its alliances abroad, be prepared for national adversaries to deepen their cooperation and work against American interests and encourage friendly global competition, he said.
Even as he was highly critical of the former Trump administration’s policies in the op-ed, Blinken wrote that he doesn’t “do politics” and argued that Americans largely favor the Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy.
“Although some Americans favor greater unilateralism and isolationism, there is in fact broad support for the pillars of the Biden administration’s strategy,” Blinken wrote. “As secretary of state, I don’t do politics; I do policy. And policy is about choices.”
Though the secretary of state role is infamous for being demanding, Blinken’s tenure over the last three-odd years has been particularly challenging. Israel and Hamas and Russia and Ukraine broke into war in recent years, sending their respective broader regions into turmoil and demanding considerable attention from the U.S.
Blinken has also been one of the most public-facing figures in dealing with China, a nation that went through turbulent diplomatic relations with the U.S. under the Biden-Harris administration’s governance. China has deepened its relations with other American adversaries such as Russia, North Korea and Iran, further forming what has been coined by some as the new “Axis of Evil.”
He also came under heavy criticism for his role in the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was largely seen as a botched and rushed operation that left a vacuum in the Middle East that was quickly filled by various terror networks.
Blinken publicly signaled in September that he had no interest in serving under a possible Harris administration, and instead will be leaving his role when Biden departs the Oval Office in January.
“As to my own future, all I’m looking at right now is the balance of this administration and January,” Blinken said at a press conference in early September. “And I can tell you from having spent some time over the last week on a bit of a break with my kids, I will relish having a lot more time with them.”
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