Biden delivers his final foreign policy speech as Gaza ceasefire talks continue | Joe Biden News

Washington DC – United States President Joe Biden delivered a powerful speech defending his administration’s foreign policy, just days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Monday’s speech, delivered at the State Department, marked the conclusion of Biden’s four years in office. He had pledged to re-establish US leadership on the global stage, pursue a foreign policy centered on human rights and mobilize alliances.

“We are at an inflection point. The post-Cold War era has ended. A new era has begun,” Biden said in his speech.

“In these four years, we have faced crises that we have experienced. We have passed those tests stronger, in my opinion, than we entered those tests.

However, critics have given his administration poor marks in several areas, especially regarding US support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

However, the outgoing president sought to deliver a specific message: that the United States is stronger and its enemies weaker than they were before he entered the White House.

“New challenges will emerge in the coming years and months, but nonetheless, it is clear that my administration will leave the next administration with a very strong hand to play,” Biden said.

“We are leaving them with an America with more friends and stronger alliances, and with its opponents weaker and under pressure – an America that once again leads, unites countries, sets the agenda, and brings others behind our plans and visions.”

Biden spoke just seven days before Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

The president-elect had condemned Biden’s foreign policy during the election campaign, accusing the Democrat of weakening the United States’ standing abroad while allowing the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to fester.

Biden presented a different picture on Monday. He said his leadership strengthened the United States’ technological, economic and strategic position against China, a rival global power.

The Democrat also praised his administration’s role in rallying NATO support for Ukraine, which has been facing a full-scale invasion from Russia since February 2022.

He also defended the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, which fulfills the agreement with the Taliban reached under Trump. The withdrawal ended two decades of American presence in the country.

“When I took office, I had a choice. Ultimately, I saw no reason to keep thousands of troops in Afghanistan,” Biden said.

“By ending the war, we were able to focus our energy and resources on more pressing challenges.”

He added that he is “the first president in decades not to leave the war in Afghanistan to his successor.”

“positive spin”

Perhaps it was Israel’s war on Gaza that overshadowed Biden’s speech. Upon his arrival, demonstrators greeted the president and chanted: “War criminal!”

Critics charged that Washington’s continued transfer of military aid to Israel amounted to support for atrocities abroad.

An estimated 46,584 Palestinians have been killed since the war began in October 2023, according to UN experts. warning Israel’s actions in the Palestinian Strip are “consistent with genocide.”

The United States provided Israel with a record amount of approximately $17.9 billion in military aid during the first year of the war, and has so far refused to benefit from continued funding to end the war.

Experts speculated that Biden’s “unwavering” support for Israel would be a permanent scar on his legacy.

However, in his speech on Monday, the US President focused on the ceasefire plan approved by the UN Security Council in June, which his administration led.

A final agreement between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas remains elusive. However, Biden spoke of the latest diplomatic flurry with hope.

Biden said: “We are on the verge of reaching a proposal that I put forward months ago, and it has finally begun to bear fruit.”

He added that he recently spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and will soon speak with his fellow mediator, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

“I’ve learned [over] “Too many years of public service to never, ever, ever give up,” Biden said. “Too many innocent people have been killed, and too many communities have been destroyed. The Palestinian people deserve peace.”

In response to the speech, Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s chief political analyst, said Biden was trying to “put a positive spin on a lot of things that are clearly incredibly negative.”

Bishara explained that the latest round of talks comes “eight months late.”

He described that period of time as “eight months of procrastination by the Netanyahu government and the complicity of this administration.”

“Diplomatic and geopolitical opportunities”

All in all, Biden’s speech represented a full-blown moment in American politics.

Upon entering the White House in 2021, Biden pledged to serve as a counterpoint to the isolationist and volatile foreign policy program of Trump’s first term.

After his departure in 2025, he appealed to the incoming second Trump administration to avoid returning to the policies of the past.

He has been praised for his own efforts to combat climate change, including by rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, an international treaty to limit carbon emissions.

Trump had previously withdrawn from the agreement in 2020. As his second term approaches, his next administration is expected to do so again, as part of his broader pledge to liberalize the American energy sector. Biden criticized those plans in a speech on Monday.

I know some in the incoming administration question the need for clean energy. “They don’t even think climate change is real,” he said.

“I think they come from a different century. They are wrong. They are completely wrong. It is the greatest existential threat to humanity.”

Biden also sought to create another contrast with Trump by promoting American alliances.

“Compared to four years ago, America is stronger. Our alliances are stronger. Our adversaries and competitors are weaker. We did not go to war to achieve these things,” Biden said.

“We have increased our diplomatic power and created more allies than the United States has ever had in our nation’s history.”

His comments served as a foil to Trump’s recent comments. While Biden focused on “strengthening partnerships across the Americas,” Trump pledged to impose sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico. He also called for taking control of the Panama Canal away from Panama.

Biden also praised renewed alliances in the Indo-Pacific region, including with regional allies such as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. Biden used his speech to stress the importance of NATO, despite Trump repeatedly raising the possibility of withdrawal.

“The United States must take full advantage of the diplomatic and geopolitical opportunities we have created,” Biden said.

He advised the United States to “continue to bring countries together to deal with the challenges posed by China.” [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war is ending and, finally, he is tapping into a new moment for a more stable and integrated Middle East.