Biden Defends Foreign Policy Record Despite Ongoing Crises

US President Joe Biden speaks at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 13, 2025, as he delivers his final foreign policy speech. (AFP)
US President Joe Biden speaks at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 13, 2025, as he delivers his final foreign policy speech. (AFP)
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Biden Defends Foreign Policy Record Despite Ongoing Crises

US President Joe Biden speaks at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 13, 2025, as he delivers his final foreign policy speech. (AFP)
US President Joe Biden speaks at the State Department in Washington, DC, on January 13, 2025, as he delivers his final foreign policy speech. (AFP)

Outgoing President Joe Biden sought to burnish his foreign policy record on Monday and said US adversaries are weaker than when he took office four years ago despite global crises that remain unresolved.

A week before handing over to President-elect Donald Trump, Biden addressed US diplomats at the State Department and touted his administration's backing for Ukraine against Russia's 2022 invasion and for Israel's wars in the Middle East.

Biden said the United States was "winning the worldwide competition" and would not be surpassed economically by China as had been predicted, while Russia and Iran have been weakened by wars without direct US involvement.

"Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are weaker," Biden said. "We have not gone to war to make these things happen."

While wars continue to rage in Ukraine and the Middle East, officials hope a deal between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas can be reached before Biden departs the White House on Jan. 20.

Biden said negotiators were close to reaching a deal that would free hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and halt the fighting in the Palestinian enclave to allow a surge of humanitarian aid.

"So many innocent people have been killed, so many communities have been destroyed. Palestinian people deserve peace, a right to determine their own futures. Israel deserves peace and real security. The hostages and their families deserve to be reunited," Biden said. "And so we're working urgently to close this deal."

Biden has faced criticism for providing Israel with weapons and diplomatic support, since the latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed over 46,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also drawing accusations of genocide in a World Court case brought by South Africa and of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the allegations. The assault has displaced nearly Gaza's entire 2.3 million population and drawn the concern of the world’s main hunger monitor.

Protesters shouting “war criminal” greeted Biden outside the State Department on Monday, some with signs and some throwing red liquid intended to look like blood.

Biden said he had helped Israel defeat adversaries including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both backed by Iran. The US president also hailed Washington's support for Israel during two Iranian attacks in 2024.

"All told, Iran is weaker than it's been in decades," he added, noting the collapse of the Syrian Assad government. "There's no question that our actions contributed significantly."

CHINA AND RUSSIA

Biden acknowledged that China, Iran, North Korea and Russia were now more closely aligned with one another, but he said that was more "out of weakness than out of strength."

Ukraine, with US backing, had thwarted Russian President Vladimir Putin's goal of wiping the country off the map, Biden said, touting his 2023 visit to Kyiv as the first by a sitting president to a war zone outside the control of US forces.

"When Putin invaded Ukraine, he thought he (could) conquer Kyiv in a matter of days. Truth is, since that war began, I'm the only one that stood in the center of Kyiv, not him," Biden said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, writing on Telegram, said Biden's address amounted to an acknowledgement "that US support for Kyiv created the risk of triggering a nuclear confrontation with Russia."

"Today's statement by Biden is an admission of a deliberately executed provocation," Zakharova wrote. "The Biden administration knew it was pushing the world toward the brink and still chose to escalate the conflict."

Biden defended his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, saying there was nothing adversaries like China and Russia would have liked more than seeing the United States continue to be tied down there for another decade.

Biden said when he entered the White House, experts predicted it was inevitable that China would surpass the United States in economic terms. Now, he predicted, that will never happen. He said the US economy was moving forward, but there was still work to do.

"Now, make no mistake, there are serious challenges the United States must continue to deal with," Biden said, including in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. He said the Biden administration was leaving the next administration "a very strong hand to play."



Biden, Trump Security Advisers Meet to Pass Ceremonial Baton

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (L) hands a baton to incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (L) hands a baton to incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Biden, Trump Security Advisers Meet to Pass Ceremonial Baton

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (L) hands a baton to incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (L) hands a baton to incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz during an event at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2025. (AFP)

Top advisers to US President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump put aside their differences - mostly - for a symbolic "passing of the torch" event focused on national security issues on Tuesday.

Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan passed a ceremonial baton to US Congressman Mike Waltz, Trump's pick for the same job, in a revival of a Washington ritual organized by the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace since 2001.

The two men are normally in the media defending their bosses' opposing views on Ukraine, the Middle East and China.

On Tuesday, Waltz and Sullivan politely searched for common ground on a panel designed to project the continuity of power in the United States.

"It's like a very strange, slightly awkward version of 'The Dating Game,' you know the old game where you wrote down your answer, and that person wrote down their answer, and you see how much they match up," said Sullivan.

The event offered a preview of what may be in store on Monday when Trump is inaugurated as president. This peaceful transfer of power, a hallmark of more than two centuries of American democracy, comes four years after Trump disputed and never conceded his loss in the 2020 election.

This time the two sides are talking. Sullivan, at Biden's request, has briefed Waltz privately, at length, on the current administration's policy around the world even as the Trump aide has regularly said the new team will depart radically from it.

Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Biden's envoy Brett McGurk are working together this week to close a ceasefire deal in the region for hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

Asked about the key challenges facing the new administration, Waltz and Sullivan on Tuesday both pointed to the California wildfires and China.

Sullivan also highlighted a hostage deal and artificial intelligence as key issues.

Waltz pointed to the US border with Mexico, an area where Trump has ripped Biden's approach.

But he credited the Biden administration with deepening ties between US allies in Asia.

For all the bonhomie between the two men, and the talk of the prospects for peace in the Middle East, Waltz painted a picture of the grimmer decisions awaiting him in his new job.

"Evil does exist," he said. "Sometimes you just have to put bombs on foreheads."