Human Rights: Can Biden Be Different?

Still in its first one hundred-day probation period, the Joe Biden administration has let the world stop and take note of the shift in the US foreign policy.

- Ameen Izzadeen

Last month, in a major foreign policy speech designed to restore order and global faith in the US, President Biden sent a strong signal to the international community that they would see a different America on his watch. His message was “America is back” with you.

It certainly does appear in stark contrast to the foreign policy of the previous Trump administration which followed an America-First foreign policy and ditched multilateralism.

Under the Trump administration, the US abandoned its allies and asked them to pay more for the protection the US granted them through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It withdrew from the Paris Climate Change Accord, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and distanced itself from the World Health Organisation while millions across the world were being afflicted with the COVID-19 pandemic. The US also withdrew from humanitarian relief programs such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that is taking care of the displaced Palestinian people.

Not only that. In defiance of international opinion and international law, the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel and Syria’s Golan Heights as part of Israel. Disregarding pleas from allies, the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal. Then in a preposterous move, the Trump administration slapped sanctions on International Criminal Court prosecutors, for they had decided to pursue war crimes US soldiers are said to have committed in Afghanistan. The Trump administration’s wrongdoings and bad policy decisions are too many to list.