On paper, few US presidents could boast the foreign policy bona fides of Joe Biden, a veteran statesman with nearly a half-century of experience before he even stepped into office.
But as his term comes to an end, critics have said that the president will leave a legacy of cautious and underpowered diplomacy, as even allies have conceded that the administration is still grasping for a cornerstone foreign policy success.
That hasn’t stopped the Biden administration from declaring victory in its final days – and scrambling to secure a last-minute ceasefire in Gaza that could potentially salvage that legacy before Trump steps into office.
“Thanks to our administration, the United States is winning the worldwide competition,” Biden said in a final foreign policy speech on Monday delivered at the state department. “Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are weaker.”
If this is winning, many Americans may struggle to imagine what losing would look like.
Biden’s administration has spent much of its time and political capital abroad attempting to contain a series of foreign wars and crises in which it has seemed impotent to impose its will.
Ukraine remains under siege as Russia grinds down the defending army and Kyiv warily awaits a Trump administration that has demanded a negotiated peace with Vladimir Putin as quickly as possible.
“Ukraine is still a free, independent country with the potential for a bright future,” Biden said, arguing that he had left Trump with a “strong hand”. “And we laid the foundation for the next administration so they can protect the bright future of the Ukrainian people.”
In Israel, the US is involved in last-ditch talks to salvage a ceasefire deal whose general terms were first proposed by Biden more than six months ago. Diplomatic efforts mostly stalled as the Netanyahu administration expanded the war into Lebanon and continued the war in Gaza.
“I have learned in many years of public service to never, never, never, ever give up,” said Biden. The US was “pressing hard to close this”, he said, adding that Palestinians had “been through hell” and that the Palestinian people “deserved peace”.
Biden also defended his administration’s withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan, a decision that ended one of the US’s “forever wars” but also led to the immediate collapse of the Afghan government and the return to power of the Taliban.
In his speech, Biden said he was “the first president in decades who’s not leaving a war in Afghanistan to his successor”.
Biden said his decision would be vindicated in time, in a tacit acknowledgement of the withdrawal as perhaps his most controversial decision in office.
“Ending the war was the right thing to do and I believe history will reflect that,” he said.
And in a warning to the incoming administration, Biden said that the US must accept the dangers of climate change and invest in clean technologies before it is too late.
“They don’t even believe climate change is real – I think they come from a different century,” Biden said of climate deniers in Trump’s team. “They are dead wrong. It’s the single greatest existential threat to humanity.”
As Biden exits the presidency, he will hand power back to a predecessor with a radically different view of the world and America’s place in it. While Biden’s administration has been criticised for its excessive caution, Trump has already threatened to annex Greenland and the Panama canal.
It is a return to the kind of blunt power politics that Trump has claimed are what America needs now, as opposed to the internationalist approach that has characterised Biden’s half-century in foreign policy.
