Biden's message to the world is that "America is back" — or will be, once he enters the White House.
- As Biden's top foreign policy adviser Tony Blinken put it before the election: “the world just doesn’t organize itself," and America remains the country best positioned to do the organizing. With a Biden victory "a lot of people will see the last four years as an aberration," Blinken said.
- Biden's primary foreign policy focus is on reviving America's alliances and recommitting to multilateral deals and institutions like the World Health Organization and the Paris accord.
- Expect him to move quickly to extend the New START arms control treaty and attempt to salvage the Iran nuclear deal.
Biden has waxed and waned on military intervention over a long career, but he believes America needs to play a larger and far less transactional role internationally than it has under Trump.
- Despite pressure from the left, he made clear that he won't immediately pull up stakes from Afghanistan, slash the Pentagon budget or suspend drone strikes.
- That has generated some skepticism among progressives. “Biden is on the conservative side of where the party is,” said Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
