It’s a story President Joe Biden tells at almost every opportunity: last year, meeting his new counterparts at his first international summit, he proudly informed them: “America is back.”
“For how long?” one of them asked.
As Biden departs this week for a weeklong trip around the world, the question continues to resonate.
“They’re very concerned that we’re still the open democracy that we’ve been and that we have rules and institutions matter,” Biden said Wednesday during a news conference.
Biden hopes his stops at a climate meeting here in the Red Sea, a gathering of Southeast Asian nations in Cambodia and a high-stakes Group of 20 summit on the Indonesian island of Bali will reaffirm American leadership in areas he has either ignored either former President Donald Trump actively avoided.
“If the United States withdrew from the world tomorrow, many things would change around the world. A lot would change,” Biden said before his trip.
He and his advisers believe they are entering the series of high-stakes meetings with a strong case that his version of the US role in the world will endure. He defied historical and political headwinds in this year’s midterm elections, while many of Trump’s handpicked candidates lost. And over the past year, he secured the passage of a major climate investment and rallied the world behind efforts to support Ukraine and isolate Russia.
But American allies’ concerns remain about the future of US commitments – to Ukraine, to combating climate change, to treaty partners and, perhaps most urgently, to upholding democratic norms. Foreign diplomats have been watching the midterm political season closely, looking for clues about how the American electorate has judged Biden’s first two years in office and signaling in their capitals voter discontent that could fuel Trump’s return to power. .
Republicans appeared to be moving toward gaining control of the House of Representatives as of Wednesday night. And Trump is lining up a third presidential bid, possibly to be announced while Biden is on the opposite side of the globe.
White House aides have not expressed concern about the split-screen possibility, believing that foreign policy is one of the president’s strong points, especially compared to Trump’s chaotic style of diplomacy.
“We just have to show that he’s not going to take office,” Biden said Wednesday. “If he does run, making sure, under the legitimate efforts of our Constitution, that he doesn’t become the next president again.”
Presidents have often turned to foreign policy, where they can act with relatively few congressional constraints, in moments of domestic political turmoil. President Barack Obama embarked on a similar tour of Asia after his self-proclaimed “relaxation” in the 2010 midterm elections.
Four defining global threats will feature on Biden’s trip: Russia’s war in Ukraine, escalating tensions with China, the existential problem of climate change and the possibility of a global recession in the coming months. Other flashpoints, such as North Korea’s rapidly accelerating provocations and uncertainty over Iran’s nuclear program, will also weigh in.
Of these, the defense of Ukraine and the fight against climate change could be most affected by the results of this week’s election.
At the G20 summit, Biden hopes to rally leaders from the world’s developed economies behind his 10-month effort to isolate and punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. He does not plan to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will not attend the meeting in person and is considering whether to attend virtually.
However, global economic adversities have tested international resolve for the pressure campaign, and world leaders have worked with varying degrees of intensity to find a diplomatic end to the conflict.
Some Trump-aligned House Republicans have called for cuts in funding to Ukraine, though other GOP defense hawks have vowed not to abandon the country amid its war with Russia.
House Republican Leader McCarthy, in an interview with CNN this week, sought to reaffirm his support for Ukraine, saying they would not automatically sign off on any additional aid requests.
“I’m very supportive of Ukraine,” McCarthy said. “I think there should be accountability in the future. … You always need, not a blank check, but make sure the resources are going where they are needed. And make sure that Congress and the Senate have an opportunity to discuss it openly.”
At the United Nations climate summit in Egypt, Biden arrives having signed the largest US investment in combating climate change ever, a dramatically different scenario from previous international gatherings – including last year’s gathering in Scotland – where US commitments to carbon reduction were not supported by law.
“We’ve seen the United States go from a global laggard to a global leader in less than 18 months,” a senior administration official said this week.
The $375 billion pledge will give Biden leverage as he works to convince other countries to step up their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, all with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
In his speech, Biden will call on nations to “really keep their eyes on the ball when it comes to accelerating ambitious action to reduce emissions,” the official said. And he will signal his administration’s intention to propose a rule this week that would require large federal contractors to develop carbon reduction targets and disclose greenhouse gas emissions, leveraging the federal government’s purchasing power to fight climate change in private sector and strengthening vulnerable supply chains.
But Republicans said they would work to repeal parts of the law and accused Biden of helping drive up energy prices by blocking the extraction of fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change.
When Trump was president, he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord entirely, the accord’s leaders meet to discuss the week.
Even without US political uncertainty, there are concerns about rising energy costs and a looming recession could dampen the resolve to switch to cleaner energy. US officials have tempered expectations for this year’s summit, which Biden is expected to attend for only a few hours.
In Congress, Biden has had more bipartisan success in his efforts to deal with China, the other major issue he will face this week. A recently passed law intended to boost the US semiconductor industry won Republican and Democratic votes, in part because it promised to wean the US off its dependence on Chinese products.
Biden’s aides worked last month to arrange his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping since taking office, even as tensions simmered between Washington and Beijing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to self-ruled Taiwan in August angered Chinese leaders and led to a near-breakdown with the US.
Biden said Wednesday that he and Xi will determine “what each of our red lines are” and discuss issues each believes are in their own “critical national interests” during the meeting.
In his recently released National Security Strategy, Biden identified China as “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge” and hopes that a one-on-one meeting with Xi – who has just begun international travel after the Covid-19 pandemic – can help establish lines of communication.
Xi arrives at the G20 fresh from a historic Communist Party conference that elevated him to an unprecedented third term – a stark contrast to Biden’s current political situation.
It is not yet clear how this disparity will play out in Bali.
“The big question is whether the two leaders will come to a kind of more conciliatory way or somewhat more provocative,” said Matthew Goodman, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“Both of them have gotten over their political events of the year and may come a little more liberated for one reason or another to try to reach out and find common ground,” Goodman said. “There are these kinds of global challenges that really affect both the US and China – whether it’s growth, whether it’s pandemics, whether it’s climate change. And so there is a possibility of some kind of conciliatory approach on both sides.”
