Given U.S. President Joe Biden’s age and near half-century of experience in Washington, it was natural that as a candidate, he portrayed himself as a bridge between America’s past and its future. In his first major foreign-policy speech as president, delivered Thursday at the State Department, Biden sought to outline how he could bridge the transition from the Trump years to a new era of U.S. leadership and from an establishment Democratic foreign policy to one that is becoming increasingly progressive. In both cases, Biden is leaning forward—but not leaving the past entirely behind.
Two weeks into his administration, it’s too early to call the ideas Biden laid out a doctrine, which aides said will come later in the year. And his first foreign-policy decisions, such as re-entering the World Health Organization and Paris climate accord and overturning the Muslim travel ban, were simply reversals of actions taken by former-President Donald Trump. Even Biden’s decision to speak at the State Department was meant to reassure U.S. diplomats scarred by four years of the previous administration that diplomacy is once again at the center of U.S. foreign policy.
