President-Elect Biden on Foreign Policy
President-Elect Joe Biden will face a suite of
challenges on the global stage, from nuclear tensions with North Korea to
coordinating a response to the ongoing pandemic.
This project was made possible in part by a grant from
Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Last Updated: November 7, 2020
China
Biden
has framed China’s rise as a serious challenge. He has criticized its “abusive”
trade practices—warning that it may pull ahead of the United States in new
technologies—and its human rights record. He says he would mount a more
effective pushback against China than Trump and work more closely with allies
to pressure Beijing.
·
Biden agrees with Trump that China is breaking
international trade rules, unfairly subsidizing Chinese companies, and
discriminating against U.S. firms and stealing their intellectual property. He
says one million manufacturing jobs have been lost to
China.
·
However, he says Trump’s broad tariffs are “erratic”
and “self-defeating,” and he instead calls for targeted retaliation against
China using existing trade laws and building a united front of allies. He warns
that China is making massive investments in energy, infrastructure, and
technology that threaten to leave the United States behind.
·
He criticized Trump’s January 2020 “phase one” trade
deal with China, calling Beijing “the
big winner” and arguing that increased purchases of U.S. agricultural products
won’t address China’s “illegal and unfair” economic practices.
·
He has also criticized Trump
for accepting China’s assurances about the coronavirus pandemic, and says the
Trump administration’s travel ban failed to halt visitors from China. He says
he would insist on greater transparency from the Chinese government.
·
He attacked Trump for what he called a weak response
to China’s infringement of Hong Kong’s autonomy and
democratic processes under Beijing’s new national security law,
and he stated that he would step up
sanctions on those responsible.
·
He pledges to reinvigorate the United States as a
Pacific power by increasing the U.S. naval presence in the Asia-Pacific and
deepening ties with countries including Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and South
Korea to make it clear to Beijing that Washington “won’t back down.”
·
He told CFR that
“the free world” must unite in the face of China’s “high-tech authoritarianism”
and that Washington must shape the “rules, norms, and institutions” that will
govern the global use of new technologies, such as artificial
intelligence.
·
He has said that China’s
corruption and internal divisions mean “they’re not competition for us.” He
says deeper U.S.-China cooperation is possible on climate, nuclear weapons, and
other issues. He also believes that remaining competitive with China
hinges on U.S. innovation and uniting “the economic might
of democracies around the world.”
·
He believes his vice-presidential experience gives him
unique insight into dealing with China’s leadership, saying he has spent more
time with Xi Jinping than any other world leader.
·
As a senator, Biden supported China’s 2001 entry into
the World Trade Organization, which gave it permanent normal trade relations
with the United States. As vice president, he backed the Obama administration’s
Asia-Pacific trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), arguing it would have
helped check China’s influence in the region.
·
He told CFR that
China’s detention of more than one million Muslims in the Xinjiang region is
“unconscionable.” He says the United States “must speak out,” and that he would
support sanctions against the individuals and companies involved, as well as a
UN Security Council condemnation.
Biden
says climate change is “the greatest threat to our security,” and calls for a
“revolution” to address it. He has released a national plan to reduce
emissions and invest in new technology and infrastructure. As a senator, he
expressed alarm over greenhouse gases, but also supported controversial energy
sources such as fracking and so-called clean coal.
·
His climate plan,
released in June 2019, calls the Green New Deal a
“crucial framework” and likewise advocates for a society-wide effort to reduce
emissions, invest in infrastructure, create new jobs, and advance social justice.
·
The plan would commit the U.S. economy to net-zero
emissions by 2050. It envisions $1.7 trillion in direct government spending on
clean energy. It promises executive action on methane emissions, stricter
fuel-economy standards, and nationwide energy efficiency
standards. Biden also opposes any
new drilling, including fracking, on public lands.
·
It promises a return to the 2015 Paris climate
agreement and a diplomatic push to make its targets more ambitious. Biden also
wants to use trade policy as a climate tool by putting tariffs on high-carbon
products from other countries.
·
It advocates for major reforms in transportation,
agriculture, and housing to reduce their carbon footprint and create
jobs.
·
In July 2020, Biden expanded on the 2019 plan, upping his
budget proposal to more than $2 trillion in an effort to achieve
a carbon-free electricity sector by 2035, invest more in low-income communities
and communities of color, build clean infrastructure, and leverage the federal
government to purchase zero-emissions vehicles. The proposal also frames this
spending as a plank of Biden’s post-pandemic economic recovery plan.
·
He told CFR that
he would bar U.S. foreign aid and financing for coal-fired power plants
overseas, provide debt relief for countries implementing green policies, and
expand Group of Twenty efforts to reduce fossil fuel subsidies worldwide.
·
He touts the record of the Obama administration,
including $90 billion for clean energy in the 2009 stimulus law, tighter
fuel-economy standards, new regulations on coal-fired power plants, and the
negotiation of the Paris accord.
·
The Obama administration’s “all-of-the-above”
energy strategy also supported the fracking boom that helped double U.S. oil
production. In 2008, Biden expressed support for clean coal technologies
opposed by many environmentalists and declined to vote on the unsuccessful
Climate Security Act, the most ambitious emissions-capping legislation to reach
the Senate floor.
Biden
has put forward a national plan to address the pandemic of the new coronavirus
disease, COVID-19. He pledges to strengthen presidential leadership and spend
“whatever it takes” to expand testing, contact tracing, treatment, and other
health services; support the economy; and prepare for future pandemics. He
criticizes Trump’s response as “political theater” and promises to return the
United States to a position of global leadership on the crisis.
·
Biden has released a
pandemic plan with a three-pronged approach: a health response,
an economic response, and a global response. He cites his experience as vice
president, during which he helped lead the Obama administration’s responses to
the 2009 H1N1
pandemic and the 2014–16 Ebola epidemic. The plan would
nationalize the coronavirus response, rather than relegate it to state
governments as the Trump administration has done.
·
His plan calls for national emergency health-care
mobilization that ramps up testing, makes it free, and provides transparency on
the resulting data. It also promises to rapidly expand hospital capacity by
quickly creating temporary hospitals, in part through the mobilization of
Defense Department resources; establish a national corps of at least one
hundred thousand contact tracers; and accelerate the creation of vaccines and
other treatments. He would also mandate wearing masks in
public.
·
The plan promises zero out-of-pocket expenses for
anyone who needs coronavirus-related health services of any kind by amending
the relevant laws governing both private and public health insurance plans. The
plan doesn’t offer a cost estimate, but campaign officials say Biden would
spend “whatever it
takes” to get the coronavirus crisis under control.
·
It proposes to incentivize businesses to produce more
personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and gloves. His
administration would work with businesses to return some pharmaceutical and
medical equipment supply chains back to the United States, after decades of
outsourcing much of that production abroad.
·
He promises to lead an expanded global response that
would be coordinated by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
and would assist vulnerable nations. He pledges to rejoin the World
Health Organization and cooperate more closely with the United
Nations and other major world players.
·
He says he will restore the White House National
Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, an
office within the National Security Council for preparing and coordinating the
response to pandemics that the Trump administration disbanded in
2018. He promises to expand staffing and funding for the State Department and
other federal agency health programs.
·
He faults Beijing for a lack of transparency in
the early stages of the crisis, and says that he would have insisted on sending
U.S. health experts to the country.
·
On the economic front, his plan proposes a raft of
federal programs to protect workers. These include mandated paid sick leave
policies, expanded unemployment benefits, and additional funds for federal food
programs, child care programs, and loans to small businesses.
·
It also proposes a new “State and Local Emergency
Fund” that will allow governors and mayors to access federal dollars for a
range of purposes, including mortgage and rental relief, jobs programs, or
direct cash payments to citizens.
Biden
has been a major proponent of a strategy he called “counterterrorism
plus.” This approach emphasizes fighting terrorist networks in
foreign countries using small groups of U.S. special forces and aggressive air
strikes instead of large troop deployments.
·
This counterterrorism strategy largely defined the
Obama administration’s policy in fighting jihadists and other militant groups
around the world, including in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, West Africa, the
Horn of Africa, and the Arabian peninsula, where U.S. drone strikes have rapidly increased.
These operations controversially included the direct targeting of militants
with U.S. citizenship, such as Anwar al-Awlaki.
·
He opposes Trump’s
executive order barring travelers from several majority-Muslim countries, which
the Trump administration says is necessary to limit entry of would-be
terrorists into the country.
·
He told CFR that
U.S. policy must focus on ensuring the remnants of al-Qaeda and the
self-proclaimed Islamic State cannot reconstitute themselves.
·
He has supported a number of expansions of federal
anti-terrorism authority. He introduced an unsuccessful 1995 law to expand
government surveillance powers, much of which was incorporated into
the 2001 Patriot Act, which he supported. In 2015, the Obama administration
approved the USA Freedom Act, which renewed the Patriot Act with some new
restrictions on surveillance.
·
He was a critic of other federal surveillance
measures, voting against updates to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
(FISA) in 2007 and 2008 that authorized the collection of emails, search histories,
and other personal data of U.S. citizens.
·
He says that as vice president, he was an advocate of
closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which he has called an
“advertisement” for recruiting terrorists. Attempts to fully close the facility
were blocked by Congress.
Cybersecurity
and Digital Policy
Biden
says that cyber threats are a growing challenge for U.S. national security,
election integrity, and the health of the nation’s democracy. Meanwhile, he
thinks government should be pressuring tech companies to reform their practices
around privacy, surveillance, and hate speech.
·
As president, he would call a
global summit to pressure tech companies to make pledges that they will ensure
their platforms “are not empowering the surveillance state, facilitating
repression in China and elsewhere, spreading hate, [or] spurring people to
violence.”
·
He told CFR that
the United States should use its foreign assistance to provide the world with
alternatives to China’s “dystopian” surveillance technologies.
·
He says he would
work with U.S. allies to develop 5G cellular networks and other
advanced technologies to ensure they remain secure from intrusion by U.S.
adversaries.
·
He is co-chair of the Transatlantic Commission on
Election Integrity, a group founded in 2018 by former U.S. and EU policymakers
to combat the shared threat of election hacking, especially by Russia.
·
He has repeatedly
warned of the vulnerability of U.S. cyber
infrastructure—including transportation networks, electrical grids, and
election systems—to attack, sabotage, and infiltration, and calls for greater
investment and higher regulatory standards.
·
He warns about the
ability of China and Russia to exploit loopholes in the U.S. regulatory system
and use the financial industry to launder money to get around the ban on
foreign funding of elections.
·
While Biden has called some of the proposals to break
up Facebook and other social media giants “premature,” he says the option should be
considered. He argues for the repeal of
regulations that exempt Facebook and other online platforms
from responsibility for what their users post.
Biden
has supported some U.S. military interventions abroad and opposed others. He
has often advocated for narrow objectives in the use of force, and he has
expressed skepticism over the ability of the United States to reshape foreign
societies. He is wary of unilateral efforts, emphasizing the importance of
diplomacy and working through alliances and global institutions.
·
He says that force
should be used “only to defend our vital interests, when the objective is clear
and achievable,” and promises to end what he calls “the forever wars” in
Afghanistan and the Middle East.
·
In 2016, speaking about the use of military
force, he argued that
“we need a real strong dose of humility about [our] capacity to fundamentally
alter circumstances around the world.” He rules out using
U.S. troops for any regime-change efforts.
·
He says that the
United States has both a moral duty and a security interest to respond with
military force to genocide or chemical weapons use around the world. He also
favors using force to avoid the disruption of the global oil trade.
·
He told CFR that
he would bring U.S. combat troops home from Afghanistan in his first term by
launching a high-level diplomatic effort that includes Afghanistan’s neighbors.
He favors keeping a
small number of special forces and intelligence assets in the country to combat
terrorism, while pursuing peace talks with the Taliban.
·
He supported the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, but as
vice president pushed for troop reductions and a more limited mission. He
argues that 2019 reports that U.S. policymakers misled the
public about the progress of the Afghan war vindicate his
opposition to “nation-building” there.
·
He argues that military spending is too focused on
traditional warfare rather than emerging areas for defense such as space and
cyberspace. He says the United States must seek to maintain its superiority
amid a “return to great power competition” with China and Russia.
·
He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but he now
calls it a “mistake” and touts his role in
withdrawing 150,000 troops from the country in 2011.
·
He says he would “reaffirm”
the ban on torture and provide more transparency on military operations,
particularly as it relates to civilian casualties.
·
He is a strong proponent of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), calling it “the single most important military alliance in
the history of the world.”
·
As vice president, he was against the 2011
intervention in Libya and skeptical of committing U.S. troops to Syria.
·
Biden has criticized the
expansion of executive war powers, saying as a candidate for president in 2008
that the use of force without congressional approval, except in the case of an
imminent threat, is an impeachable offense.
·
He promises a new federal initiative to address
suicide and mental health issues among veterans that will include increased
funding to Veterans Affairs health programs.
Biden
emphasizes that the United States cannot deal with the new challenges it faces
without close relationships with its allies and the cooperation of
international institutions. He says Trump’s withdrawal from treaties and his
denigration of alliances has “bankrupted America’s word in the world.”
·
He wants to convene all
democratic nations in a “Summit for Democracy” to discuss three major areas:
fighting corruption, defending against rising authoritarianism, and advancing
human rights.
·
He says he will make diplomacy the premier tool of
U.S. foreign policy and will “rebuild” the State Department.
·
He argues that Trump
has “belittled, undermined, and in some cases abandoned U.S. allies and
partners.”
·
He promises to recommit to alliances and reenter
agreements, including restoring U.S. support for NATO, rejoining the Iran
nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, and strengthening alliances with
Australia, Israel, Japan, and South Korea.
·
He warns about the rising tide of populism and
nationalism around the world, and argues that if the
United States withdraws from global leadership, “authoritarian powers will rush
in.” He says Trump’s “admiration for autocrats” is dangerous.
·
He told CFR that
the United States’ greatest foreign policy accomplishment has been the
“investments in collective security and prosperity” made in partnership with
U.S. allies.
Biden
has positioned himself as a champion of the
middle class, warning that decreasing economic opportunity and
mobility is worsening the polarization and radicalization of American life. He
proposes trillions of dollars in new federal spending on U.S. products, infrastructure,
and research, arguing that “economic
security is national security.”
·
He argues that the “basic bargain” with workers has
broken down, and that economic globalization has had major downsides. He says
globalization has “hollowed out” the middle class, led to the
loss of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs, and accelerated inequality.
·
He says the 2017 tax reform has made these problems
worse by cutting taxes for the wealthiest individuals. He wants to repeal the
2017 law, instead raising corporate taxes and taxes on investments and other
passive income. He would also increase middle-class benefits such as the child
tax credit.
·
That additional tax revenue, he says, would help fund
his $700 billion “Buy American” economic plan, outlined in
July 2020. Under this plan, the federal government would spend $400 billion on
U.S. goods and services over four years and devote another $300 billion to
research and development of clean energy and other technologies.
·
He has described Trump’s manufacturing strategy as “trickle-down economics that
works for corporate executives and Wall Street investors, but not working
families.”
·
He also wants to invest trillions of dollars into
American infrastructure. He proposes putting at least $1.7 trillion—which he says would be
generated by reversing the 2017 tax cuts—toward clean energy
and other infrastructure.
·
He has consistently proposed major reforms to U.S.
education, pushing for free community college and vocational training, as well
as free public four-year college. He says this is essential for U.S. workers to
compete internationally and adapt in an economy under pressure from automation
and other technological disruptions.
·
He proposes policies to strengthen worker leverage in
the marketplace: banning noncompete rules, ending wage secrecy, and implementing
a national $15 per hour minimum wage.
·
He wants to do more to challenge monopolies, arguing
that the Trump administration has been weak on antitrust. He has said he is
open to the federal government breaking up dominant firms like
Facebook.
Biden
has condemned Trump’s approach to immigrants and asylum seekers, calling it
“morally bankrupt” and “racist.” He supports comprehensive immigration reform,
and has in the past backed more restrictionist policies. He emphasizes the need
to address the root causes of immigration in the countries of origin.
·
Biden highlights his role on immigration in the Obama
administration, where he led policy on addressing the 2014 wave of
unaccompanied minors arriving at the U.S. southern border. He says the $750
million aid package the
administration gave to Central American governments helped stem
the flow of migrants.
·
He continues to back the broad outlines of
Obama’s unsuccessful
2013 comprehensive reform plan, including a path to citizenship for
undocumented residents paired with stronger border enforcement. He says border
policy should focus on beefing up screening at legal points of entry, not
building a wall.
·
He would overturn policies that separate
families at the border and prolong detentions. He also vows to establish
public-private networks to address humanitarian needs at the border.
·
He opposes Trump’s
executive order barring travelers from several majority-Muslim countries, which
the Trump administration says is necessary to limit entry of would-be
terrorists into the country.
·
He says Dreamers—undocumented residents brought to the
United States as children—should be immediately granted citizenship.
·
He criticizes Trump on punishing so-called sanctuary
cities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. He
condemns family separation and overcrowded detention facilities and wants to
“strengthen and streamline” the U.S. asylum system.
·
He also wants to reverse Trump on temporary protected
status (TPS)—restoring the immigration program for citizens of El Salvador,
Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, and elsewhere and extending it to Venezuelans.
·
He has rebutted criticism from other candidates who
have attacked Obama’s deportation policy—three million people were deported
during his tenure—saying it is “immoral” to compare Obama and Trump.
·
As a senator, he voted for the 2006 Secure Fence Act,
which authorized seven hundred miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border, and
a 1996 law that
increased penalties for illegal immigration and expanded the government’s
deportation authority. In 2008, he proposed jailing
employers that hire undocumented workers, cracking down on sanctuary cities,
and building more border fencing to stop drug dealers from Mexico.
Both
as a senator and as vice president, Biden has been deeply engaged in shaping
U.S. diplomacy and military policy across the Middle East. As a candidate, he
is running on his experience dealing with Iraq, Israel, Syria, Iran, and others
in the region.
·
Biden has been a strong supporter of
Israel throughout his political career, calling himself a Zionist. He says his
commitment to Israel’s security is “ironclad” and that, while he promises to
place “constant pressure” on Israel to resolve its conflicts, he would not
withhold aid.
·
He told CFR he
backs a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, which he says
Trump’s unilateral approach has made more difficult. He supports keeping the
U.S. embassy in Jerusalem after Trump moved it there in 2018.
·
He also says Israel must stop settlement activity in
the occupied territories and provide more aid to Gaza, and that Palestinian
leaders should stop the “glorification of violence.” He calls on Arab states to
normalize relations with Israel. He says he does not support Israeli
government plans to annex the West Bank, arguing such a move would “choke off
any hope for peace.”
·
He criticizes the
Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to put economic
pressure on Israel, and says it “veers into anti-Semitism,” and that he would
oppose any BDS efforts in Congress.
·
He calls Iran a “destabilizing” force in the region
and told CFR it
must never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
·
He calls Trump’s
approach to Iran a “self-inflicted disaster”, arguing that his
withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal has failed to keep Tehran from
advancing its nuclear program. Biden pledges to rejoin the agreement if Iran
returns to compliance.
·
He says that Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, who
was killed by a U.S. air strike in January 2020, deserved justice for his role
in attacks on U.S. troops, but that Trump’s decision to target him was an “enormous
escalation” made without any plan for the likely consequences. He
says Trump has no authority to
undertake war with Iran without congressional approval.
·
He condemns Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from
northern Syria, which he calls a
betrayal of the Kurds and “the most shameful thing any president has done in
modern history in terms of foreign policy.” He says Turkey “must pay a heavy
price” for its military campaign in Syrian Kurdish territory.
·
He says he is “very
concerned” about the United States keeping nuclear weapons in Turkey, and
proposes stronger support for the domestic opposition to President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan. As vice president, Biden publicly apologized to Erdogan for suggesting Turkey
supported the Islamic State.
·
As vice president, he was skeptical of committing U.S.
troops to Syria, arguing that any
significant use of force would have had unpredictable consequences. In
2018, he called Syria
one of the United States’ “biggest conundrums.”
·
He has long been deeply involved in Iraq policy. As a
senator, he supported President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, but
opposed the 2007 surge of additional troops. Instead, Biden proposed
partitioning Iraq into three self-governing regions. As vice president,
he oversaw the 2011
withdrawal of the remaining 150,000 U.S. troops and then the
return of U.S. forces to fight the Islamic State in 2014.
·
He told CFR he
wants a “reassessment” of U.S. support for Saudi Arabia in the wake of the
murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi-led war in Yemen, and domestic
human rights violations.
·
Though the Obama administration backed the Saudi war
in Yemen, Biden says Washington should end its involvement in
the “unwinnable conflict.” He also says he would stop arms sales to
the kingdom and treat Riyadh like a “pariah” on the world stage.
·
He has long been critical of Saudi Arabia. In
2014, he blamed the
country and its Sunni allies for allowing resources to flow to
the Islamic State.
Biden
supports diplomacy with Pyongyang, but says that Trump’s talks with Kim Jong-un
have been unsuccessful and potentially counterproductive, serving only to
“legitimize a dictator.”
·
Biden supports continued negotiations, but says they
would depend on Kim taking concrete steps toward dismantling his nuclear
program, with a final goal of a fully denuclearized North Korea. He says
he would not
continue direct personal diplomacy with Kim.
·
He told CFR he
would launch a “sustained, coordinated campaign” with U.S. allies and with
China to advance negotiations. He says Trump has “ostracized” the United
States from its Asian allies, especially South Korea, and that he would seek to
deepen Washington’s relationship with Seoul.
·
He has called Trump’s repeated meetings with Kim
“photo-ops,” and he argues that they have worsened the situation by bolstering
Kim’s regime without securing any concessions.
·
“We still don’t have a single commitment from North
Korea...not one missile or nuclear weapon has been destroyed, not one inspector
is on the ground,” Biden has said.
Biden warns that Russia
under President Vladimir Putin is “assaulting the foundations of Western
democracy” by seeking to weaken NATO, divide the European Union, and undermine
the U.S. electoral system. He also warns of Russia using Western financial
institutions to launder billions of dollars, money he says is then used to
influence politicians.
·
Biden is a longtime champion of NATO, and has
encouraged its expansion eastward, most recently with the accession of
Montenegro. In 2009, he supported the
so far unsuccessful ambitions of Georgia and Ukraine to join the alliance.
·
He calls for an independent investigation into
“Russia’s assault on American democracy,” along the lines of the 9/11
Commission, to examine how to deter Moscow’s ongoing efforts at
disruption.
·
He says that the United States and its European allies
must strengthen their cyber infrastructure, close foreign-money loopholes,
increase the transparency of online platforms, and better coordinate
intelligence and law enforcement efforts.
·
They must also invest more in NATO, which he says
should forward deploy more troops to Eastern Europe to deter Russian
aggression.
·
He argues that the United States and Europe must
“impose meaningful costs” on Moscow. Biden touts the sanctions the Obama
administration levied against Russia after its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and
says they should be continued and expanded as necessary.
·
He told CFR that
he would increase U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, conditioned on
anticorruption reforms, to ensure “Russia pays a heavier price” for its
interference. As vice president, he advocated for sending weapons to Ukraine to
support it against the Russia-backed insurgency in its eastern territories,
and he supported Trump’s
moves to do so as well.
·
He sharply
criticized Trump for failing to respond to intelligence reports
that reportedly indicated Moscow was offering bounties to Taliban-linked
militias to kill U.S. and coalition soldiers in Afghanistan, calling it a
“dereliction of duty.”
·
He opposes Trump’s advocacy for readmitting Russia to
the Group of Seven,
from which it was expelled after its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
·
Biden has faced criticism from Trump for his family’s
ties to Ukraine, specifically the affiliation of
his son, Hunter, with a Ukrainian energy company while Biden was
serving as vice president. Biden says Hunter’s position had no connection to
U.S.-Ukraine policy. Trump’s alleged efforts to use military aid to pressure
Ukraine to investigate Biden were at the center of
Trump’s 2019 impeachment.
·
Despite his distrust of Russian policy objectives,
Biden says Washington should pursue new arms control arrangements with
Moscow, beginning with the extension of the New START treaty to reduce nuclear
stockpiles.
Biden
has been a longtime supporter of trade liberalization and a critic of Trump’s
tariffs, arguing that Washington should take the lead on creating global trade
rules and lowering barriers to commerce worldwide. However, he is also critical
of some aspects of trade.
·
He told CFR that
the United States must “write the rules of the road for the world” to create a
level playing field for workers and to protect the environment. He says he
wouldn’t sign any new trade deal that doesn’t include “major investments” in
jobs and infrastructure, or that doesn’t include labor and environmental
advocates in negotiations.
·
As vice president, he backed the Obama
administration’s Asia-Pacific trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which
Trump rejected. He says backing out of the TPP “put China in the driver’s
seat.”
·
Singling out China, he argues for “aggressive”
retaliation against countries that break international trade rules by
subsidizing their companies and stealing U.S. intellectual property. He also
says existing trade laws must be better enforced, and argues that the United
States must use its
economic leverage to negotiate better deals.
·
He opposes Trump’s trade war with China, calling the tariffs “self-defeating”
because Americans are bearing their cost.
·
As a senator in 1993, he voted for the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a vote he continues to
defend. He supports Trump’s renegotiated version, the
U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, because of its improved labor
rights provisions.
·
He has opposed some other U.S. trade deals, like the
one signed with Peru in 2006, citing weak labor and environmental protections. He
supported normalizing trade relations with China in 2000.
·
He told CFR that
Washington should help African countries develop by strengthening trade
relationships and opening new markets for U.S. businesses.
Biden says that Trump
has “taken a wrecking ball to our hemispheric ties,” pointing to his
immigration policies and also to what Biden sees as a haphazard approach to the
regional crisis in Venezuela, which has created more than
three million refugees.
·
Biden told CFR that
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is a “tyrant” who should step aside, and
has called on world governments to recognize opposition leader Juan
Guaido.
·
He advocates for increased sanctions on the regime and
its supporters, more aid to help both Venezuela and its neighbors deal with the
refugee crisis, and negotiations over the release of political prisoners and
new elections.
·
He criticizes Trump’s handling of the Venezuela
crisis, charging that his
administration’s efforts to support democracy there “have been undermined by
politicization, faulty execution and clunky sloganeering.”
·
He says that Trump’s “saber rattling”
over potential U.S. military intervention in Venezuela has threatened the
coalition that has been assembled to support Guaido, and he condemns the
administration’s refusal to allow more Venezuelans refuge in the United States.
·
He points to his focus on Latin America as vice
president. During his tenure, the Obama administration reopened diplomatic ties
with Cuba, which the Trump administration then reversed, blaming Cuba for
propping up Maduro’s regime in Venezuela. Obama also concluded trade deals with
Colombia and Panama and negotiated a $750 million aid package for Central
America.
Cybersecurity
and Digital Policy
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