It isn’t Vice President Kamala Harris’s fault she’s failing to solve the immigration crisis. The border czar gets her orders from President Joe Biden, who has been consistently wrong on foreign policy and national security for over four decades. Last week’s Central America circus tour shocked nobody.
Harris is also off the hook for her recent poor performance because her boss just one-upped her in Europe, rewarding Russian thug Vladimir Putin with an international summit for absolutely no reason. Biden’s meeting with Putin could have been an email or a phone call. The only agreement the two came to was to keep talking to each other.
Biden likes to talk tough on Russia, but his actions leading up to the meeting were weak. Even after his own State Department said sanctions were warranted, his administration waived sanctions on the Nordstream 2 pipeline project. This will allow Russia to increase its energy dominance over Europe. Additionally, Biden was soft on Putin for asking politely that Russia not conduct cyberattacks instead of letting Putin know there will be serious consequences if it happens again. The entire event was a missed opportunity to show Putin his antics will not be tolerated.
Recent fiascos in Central America and Russia aside, President Biden has shown weakness when dealing with adversaries such as the Iranian regime and the Chinese Communist Party.
The Iranian regime wants to destroy Israel and would use nuclear weapons against our closest Middle East ally in a heartbeat. Iran must never become a nuclear power, but Biden is already playing into Ayatollah Khamenei’s hands by attempting to revive the flawed Obama-era nuclear deal. That deal would effectively allow Iran’s nuclear program to continue indefinitely without proper oversight. Biden also lifted sanctions on Iranian individuals, despite promising there would be no concessions until Iran returns to the original parameters of the nuclear deal.
Outside the Middle East, President Biden is weakening our economic advantage over China. Biden insists on negotiating a one-sided environmental deal with China’s Communist regime, which has already made clear it will not respect its commitments anyway.
China never needed this deal to get a leg up on us. Biden was quick to reenter the Paris Climate Accord, which hamstrings our energy industry yet doesn’t bind China to any reductions in emissions until 2030. Biden also sacrificed the Keystone XL Pipeline and oil and gas drilling on U.S. federal lands. Meanwhile, China still hasn’t changed a thing about its energy habits and is bringing new coal plants online.
Instead of learning from his past mistakes, Joe Biden continues to maintain the same approach to international affairs that has failed for decades. Under Biden, our adversaries view us as weak and America as being in decline.
Tim Burchett, a Republican, represents Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
