Washington • Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden went to the State Department headquarters and told the world that the United States would be credible again four years after Donald Trump’s foreign policy in China.
“America is back,” Biden said was a mantra.
But keeping his promise on the international stage proved to be much more difficult than Biden had expected. Domestic politics is routinely an obstacle when it comes to tackling climate change, taxes and pandemics, and hopes that Biden can quickly return the United States to its unquestionable role as a world leader. Is weakening.
As a result, the administration is tense to maintain credibility abroad while Biden is fighting rearguard actions at Capitol Hill. When he is struggling to solve the same problem domestically, it is simply more difficult for him to pressure other countries to do more to tackle cross-border challenges.
“Everything new is a bit dull and contributes to the president’s sense of struggle,” said Michael O’Hanlon, head of foreign policy research at the Brookings Institution.
Biden is respected for summarizing Russia’s international response to the invasion of Ukraine, and the United States ships more coronavirus vaccines worldwide than any other country.
Adrian Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said Biden “regained alliances, including an essential partnership with Europe, and is new to some of the world’s most relevant regions, including the Indo-Pacific. We built a platform and an institution. ” He demonstrated leadership on “the most important issues.”
But his foreign policy record is much more complicated when he needs to secure congressional support.
He secured nearly $ 54 billion in military and financial support for Ukraine, which Watson described as a historic amount offered at “unprecedented speed,” but the Republicans said. Biden continues to be uniformly opposed to many of his initiatives, and Biden is hampered by disagreements between Democrats.
A recent issue was the collapse of on-and-off negotiations with Senator Joe Manchin, who elicited support for a potential compromise in the law to address climate change and create a global minimum tax.
On both issues, Biden has already made a pledge or has reached an international agreement, but US commitments are currently being questioned.
The world’s minimum tax amount is intended to make it difficult for businesses to fend off taxes by moving from country to country in search of lower tax rates. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen played a leading role in negotiating agreements between 130 countries.
“It wasn’t easy to reach this consensus,” Biden said more than a year ago when the agreement was announced. “We needed an American vision and a commitment to work closely with partners around the world, which means that our values-based leadership can make significant progress for families around the world. It’s a proof. “
He admitted that “building on this agreement would also require us to take action at home here” — and now that action may not take place. I can see.
Biden wanted Congress to pass a proposal allowing the United States to impose additional taxes on companies that have not paid at least 15% domestically or abroad.
However, Manchin opposed the tax reform of the law currently under consideration.
Government officials say they haven’t given up on plans to “level the competition for U.S. companies, reduce incentives to move jobs abroad, and close the loopholes companies used to move profits abroad.” rice field.
“It is very important for economics and competitiveness not to reach this agreement, and we will continue to consider all possible means to achieve it,” said Michael Kikukawa, a spokesman for the Treasury. ..
However, proceeding with the initial transaction is likely to be difficult at this time, said Chye-Ching Huang, executive director of the NYU School of Law’s Tax Center.
“There is no doubt that this will weaken the momentum,” she said.
“It’s likely that major trading partners will do this without the United States, but the road ahead is more difficult,” she added.
Manchin is also an obstacle to Biden’s climate change program, reflecting his oversized impact when the Democratic Party held the narrowest margin in the Senate.
In the months following his inauguration, Biden announced that it would host a virtual conference with other world leaders to raise the country’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
This decision was welcomed by scientists and politicians worried that not enough was done to prevent the Earth from warming to dangerous levels, and Biden was “the power of our example.” We talked about fighting climate change.
However, Biden’s ability to fulfill his oath has been compromised twice recently. First, a conservative majority of the Supreme Court limited the government’s ability to regulate emissions, and then Manchin said it would not support new spending to support clean energy projects.
Biden’s global climate envoy, John Kerry, said earlier this month that the administration’s struggle could “slow down” emission cuts in other countries.
“They will do their own analysis that will influence deciding what they do,” he said.
Biden is trying to demonstrate that he can move forward without the law. He is considering a state of emergency that can shift more resources to climate change initiatives.
However, his power is limited and achieving his goals can be difficult, if not impossible.
Nathaniel Keohane, chairman of the Center for Climate Energy Solutions, said the clock is ticking until the next UN Climate Change Summit in Egypt in November.
If the administration couldn’t make progress before that, “it would hinder the US’s ability to keep pushing more from other nations,” Keohane said. “It will seriously undermine US confidence in the climate.”
“No more rhetoric will be able to meet the needs at this time,” he added.
Biden also struggled to persuade Congress to provide him with more money to deal with the pandemic.
When Dr. Ashishger, who heads the administration’s Coronavirus Task Force, first appeared in the White House briefing room in April, he emphasized the need for global vaccination to prevent the emergence of new variants.
“If we are going to fight a pandemic, we have to take a global approach,” he said. “That means we need money to ensure that we are being shot all over the world.”
Biden originally wanted $ 22.5 billion. Lawmakers reduced the proposal to $ 15.6 billion, but it was still dropped from the $ 1.5 trillion government spending plan signed by the president in March.
Efforts to revive the proposal have not been successful.
J. Stephen Morrison, Director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: “There is paralysis and uncertainty.”
Morrison emphasized that the United States has played a “very serious and prestigious leadership role” by establishing a new fund to prepare for future pandemics through vaccine donations and collaboration with the World Bank. did.
But without the new law, Morrison said stronger plans were pending to support vaccination campaigns in other countries.
“We are in a difficult situation right now,” he said.
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