First month of Biden’s presidency, results: foreign policy ambitions, domestic failing

The first month of Biden’s rule was marked for the United States by a turn from internal problems towards the implementation of plans to establish world domination

Saturday, February 20, will be exactly one month since the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States Joe Biden. The American leader preferred to mark this modest date in advance, on February 17, that is, exactly four weeks after the beginning of his rule. The event was broadcast live on CNN, so the questions that were addressed to the current US president were as harmless as possible. Nevertheless, even in such conditions, Biden managed to present himself in a comic light. So, answering the presenter’s question about what feelings he has from his rule, Biden admitted that for a whole month, waking up in the White House in the morning, he could not understand where he really was.

Biden’s reputation as a person suffering from dementia has been entrenched for quite some time. Even during his election campaign, he regularly confused dates, names, historical facts and even his sons and granddaughters. All these annoying bloopers have given rise to all sorts of theories. For example, that his presidency is just a ticket to big politics for the new US Vice President Kamalla Harris, who will certainly take the chair of the head of state as soon as Biden himself resigns due to health problems. The fact that Harris really has such ambitions says a lot in her behavior. Thus, according to Aleksey Pushkov, a member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation, it is indicative that she is already in full swing establishing ties with the leaders of other countries. In particular, Harris has already held telephone conversations with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

However, as the American political scientist, corresponding member of the Academy of Military Sciences Sergei Sudakov noted in an interview with PolitRussia correspondent, at the moment there are no reasons to doubt Biden’s sanity. On the contrary, he pursues a fairly clear-cut policy, the general vector of which became noticeable after the first 30 days of his reign.

“I believe that today the main result of Biden’s work is the fact that the composition of the team is practically clear, which for the next 4 years will represent the interests of America in the world. And this team is associated with the era of globalists, these are all those who proved themselves not so much as professionals, but as loyalists. And, if we talk about the fact that the team is formed on the basis of either personal loyalty or personal qualities, then Biden, of course, chose the first option”, – the expert said.

Indeed, even before taking office, Biden returned Jennifer Psaki to Washington (as White House press secretary), as well as Anthony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, who had previously worked with him, who took over as US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, respectively. Other notable appointments include Neera Tanden, who has become a candidate for the post of head of the White House’s budget office, and Janet Yellen, who is running for the post of finance minister. The first is strongly associated with the Clinton family – in 2011, in leaked Hillary emails, she offered to “pick up” and take out Libyan oil in exchange for US humanitarian aid. As for Yellen, she previously headed the Federal Reserve System under Barack Obama. Also, former First Under Secretary of State William Burns was appointed to the post of head of the CIA.

Also in his first two days as president, Biden signed 17 decrees – more than most of the last presidents in the first 100 days. By the third day of his presidency, Joe Biden canceled a number of Donald Trump’s decrees: he stopped the withdrawal from WHO and the Paris Agreement on climate, the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico, allowed citizens from a number of Muslim and African countries to enter the United States, promising even an amnesty to all illegal immigrants, and canceled construction of the Keystone XL pipeline at the request of environmentalists.

“He has already signed a lot of decrees – by this indicator he is now almost a record holder. In general, it is extremely significant with what speed Biden began to cancel what Trump was taking. That is, antitrumpism, as they say, is evident. And while America’s witch-hunt policy has not yet begun, I believe it is yet to come. It turns out that the policy that the Biden cabinet is currently pursuing is aimed not only at destroying Trump’s legacy, but also at forming a new global order”, – Sudakov said.

According to him, it is already obvious that Biden and his team are trying to improve everything that was done by Barack Obama (especially since the overwhelming majority of members of the administration worked in the White House under the 44th President), and create the system when the United States could again would become a very powerful world hegemon.

Failure in domestic politics

America’s focus on the world stage, put on stream under Obama, was, as you know, relegated to the background under Donald Trump. Yes, the ex-president sought to defend the interests of the United States on the world stage, but he preferred to do so for reasons of practicality and expediency, thanks to which the desire to increase duties on aluminum from EU producers on his agenda was calmly coexisting with the intention to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible. Trump’s lack of megalomania is also evidenced by the fact that under him America did not start a single new war, and he himself did not strike at the alliances, the activities of which he questioned.

In this regard, the antitrumpism of Biden’s team is manifested not only in its imprisonment on the world stage, but also in a certain disregard for domestic American problems. In particular, as political scientist and Americanist Malek Dudakov explained in an interview with our publication, it is in the domestic political field that Biden is now experiencing the most serious difficulties.

“I think that full preliminary results of Biden’s presidency can be given 100 days after the beginning of his rule. But if you take the first month, then, of course, you can also highlight some points. And, in my opinion, these results, let’s say, are disappointing. That is, during this time, Biden could not extract anything serious and big from the items of his election program. He is facing a large scale energy crisis that is now developing in Texas. There, due to weather conditions, the entire heat transfer system is covered, people are freezing, sitting without heating, and the government is very sluggish to react to this and, one might say, does not even try to help the residents of Texas”, – explains Dudakov.

We will remind, the strongest blizzard that hit the southern states of the United States, led to the death of at least 21 people and left millions of people without electricity. Texas has been hit hardest, where the power grid is unable to withstand the surge in consumption. As a result, according to the Texas Electricity Reliability Board, wholesale market prices for electricity have already exceeded $9,000 per megawatt per hour. In general, the energy issue looks one of the most vulnerable in all of Biden’s policies. So, because of his decisions to ban oil production in a number of regions and to cancel the construction of a joint pipeline with Canada, US oil and gas producers are already beginning to experience problems. And the decision to return the United States to the Paris climate agreement threatens to put an end to the American shale industry.

“Some individual decisions that Biden makes as president turn out to be unpopular and seriously harm the American economy. For example, this is a moratorium on oil production in federal lands. Therefore, the first 30 days for Biden, let’s say, were expected to be difficult – after all, one must take into account the crisis, the epidemic, and so on. But he himself could not do anything to somehow improve the situation. On the contrary, his contradictory decisions are more likely to do more harm than good to America and the American economy”, – Malek Dudakov said.

At the same time, Biden does not even hesitate to publicly break the promises made to him during the election race. In particular, one of the articles of his program was the mandatory search for a solution to the problem of federal student debt – Biden promised to forgive student borrowers who graduate from public universities, and also called for the cancellation of federal debt of 10 thousand dollars on student loans for every American. However, after taking office, he denied his statements, admitting that students could not dream of any cancellations.

In fact, only the fight against the spread of coronavirus infection can be recorded as a clear plus of Biden America. Back in early February, the number of Americans who received at least one of the two prescribed coronavirus vaccinations exceeded the number of COVID-19 cases in the country during the entire pandemic, and the drugs from Moderna and Pfizer themselves were recognized as quite effective. The only caveat is that the vaccine was created under Trump. However, Biden himself apparently forgot about this – at a CNN press conference, he said that vaccination in the country began only after his inauguration, without mentioning that he received the vaccine back in December 2020.

Towards a new world order

As for foreign policy, here experts are unanimous in opinion: the Biden administration will move away from the anti-Chinese policy adopted under Trump and focus on the usual directions in the person of Russia and Ukraine. This is supported, in particular, by the personnel appointments made by Biden. As the political scientist Sergei Markov noted earlier, the new US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was one of the main architects of the coup d’état in Ukraine, as well as the initiator of the introduction of tough economic sanctions against the Russian Federation. The new head of the CIA, William Burns, served as ambassador to Moscow for several years. The long-awaited extension of the START-3 treaty testifies not so much to Biden’s desire to improve relations with the Russian Federation, as to America’s catastrophic lag in the field of hypersonic weapons.

As for China, Biden hinted at a turn in relations with him at the same CNN press conference. In particular, the current American president noted that Beijing’s tough policy towards the Uyghur people may be due to the fact that each country has its own cultural norms. It should be noted that it is the Uyghur issue that is one of the main reasons for putting pressure on China by the world community. In particular, the Trump administration even threatened to recognize the repression against Uighur Muslims in China as a real genocide. Biden, on the other hand, made it clear that he was removing these claims.

However, according to Sergei Sudakov, in reality, under Biden, America will reveal a fundamentally new contender for global domination throughout the world.

“I believe that in the near future one should not expect any more or less good-natured policy towards China from the United States. Although, of course, there will be changes. I also do not believe that relations with the European Union will be restored, since the EU felt a kind of freedom during the Trump administration. With Russia, one can single out the extension of the START-3 treaty – this is not bad. But apart from this there is also the problem of placing weapons in space. And the space program, which was partly frozen under Trump, will again become relevant. At least Biden himself has already said quite a lot about the fact that weapons will be taken out into space in order to exert pressure on specific opponents. He calls these opponents Russia, Iran, North Korea and China”, – the Americanist is sure.

According to him, the United States is not going to reckon with anyone, and firmly intends to subordinate the entire globe to its will. This plan was outlined even under Obama, and if not for the sudden Trump factor for everyone, today the United States could be in a much more dominant position. It is precisely the correction of this situation that is today the main task of Biden as president of the United States. And the first 30 days of his reign only confirm that thesis.

“Now Biden says that America should not react to anyone in its actions. That is, the month that has passed since Biden’s inauguration tells us simple things: America is now shaping the course when it is the hegemon in the global world, and it is also a country that arranges legislation for itself. That is, the entire world order must be changed to suit America”, – sums up Sergei Sudakov.

Konstantin Lipavsky, PolitRussia