By TIPPINSIGHTS EDITORIAL BOARD, TIPP Insights

For all the goals of President Biden’s Democratic Party to be inclusive of every demographic and grow party identification, the administration’s foreign policy priorities are doing just the opposite.

Driven by woke principles that dictate liberal American values on erstwhile partners and allies – under the excuse of protecting the “rules-based international order” – the United States has been reduced to a regional power with solid relationships with just a handful of nations. These include the G-7, the 27 member E.U. states, Australia, and New Zealand. Other countries, such as Ukraine and Taiwan, have become closer only because of America’s largesse.

But great regional powers with significant geopolitical influences no longer consider themselves America’s best friends. After being Afghanistan’s most powerful financial supporter for twenty years, building institutions protecting women, children, and human rights, President Biden abruptly withdrew with no backup plan.

When the Taliban took over, the landlocked nation was left in chaos. Angry at the regime, the Biden administration did what it knows best: enact crippling sanctions that have further worsened the average Afghani’s plight. Millions are now suffering from famine, malnutrition, and a humanitarian crisis. Several countries, such as Pakistan, Iran, Qatar, China, and Russia, have stepped in, but without America’s resources, chaos has continued. If human rights are so crucial to the rules-based order, why did America abandon a country in which it invested trillions?

After President Biden’s disastrous U-turn against the Saudis, first declaring Prince MBS a “pariah” and then heading to Riyadh to beg for additional oil only to be rebuffed, the kingdom is investing in relationships with countries around it. A Bloomberg story highlighted how Saudi Arabia has begun propping up the finances of Pakistan, once an American ally but now largely forgotten.

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Saudi Arabia is also helping Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he mounts another election campaign to remain in power by agreeing to deposit $5 billion in Turkey’s central bank and shoring up the Lira. Ironically, it was Turkish intelligence that influenced America to distance itself from Saudi Arabia after journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing. Now, the two governments have made up and moved on, while America is left behind. And Saudi Arabia is heavily investing in Egypt, once America’s largest benefactor of financial aid, a privilege that Ukraine now holds.

America has deepened its mistrust with Russia and China, crucial players on the world stage. Both are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council with veto powers that can stall American action in any matter of global import, like sanctioning North Korea, which has repeatedly launched missiles close to South Korea and Japan.

At a time when the administration says that threats from climate change are existential to the planet, an antagonistic foreign policy where America is taking sides and investing billions in empowering Russia’s and China’s rivals – Ukraine and Taiwan – is threatening progress to combat climate change. China and Russia are heavy polluters, continuing to rely on fossil fuels to generate or export energy. China is the world’s largest producer and consumer of coal. Does the rules-based order only apply to security and not the environment? Isn’t the environment an international security issue?

America’s single-minded policy of supporting Ukraine “at all costs” – to protect a sovereign state’s territorial integrity – has created friction with a long-term geopolitical ally like India, the only country with the gravitas to counter China.

In April, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, seeking India’s support to condemn President Putin, warned New Delhi not to backslide on human rights. Next, he went on with his veiled threat. The U.S. has “not yet made a determination regarding potential sanctions or potential waivers under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) law” when it comes to India’s purchase of S-400 air defense systems. Translation: if India were to buy weapons from Russia (India’s largest weapons supplier), America could place even India, a valued partner, under sanctions.

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Little wonder India has continued to look out for itself while highlighting the West’s hypocrisy. After this week’s talks with visiting German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, India’s foreign minister said about buying Russian oil, a bone of contention between America and India, “Europe can’t make choices to prioritize its energy needs while asking New Delhi to do something else.”

The new Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu sees little in common with the Biden administration besides a deep concern about Iran. The two governments disagree about everything else – the Ukraine war in which Israel has struggled to stay neutral, Palestine, and establishing relationships with other Arab nations built on the Trump-era Abraham accords, to which the Biden administration is opposed.

Nearer home, Mexico snubbed the Biden administration by refusing to attend the June Summit of the Americas. South Africa, a reliable U.S. partner, eschewed American requests to support Ukraine. Evidently, protecting a sovereign state’s territorial integrity, while necessary, pales in comparison to other priorities. A Brookings report said it best: Many countries in the Global South—with market economies and democratic political systems and values like those espoused by the West—prefer not to take sides even in the face of a clear violation of a sovereign state’s territorial integrity.

As America unleashes sanction after sanction – a 2021 U.S. Treasury report said that an incredible 9,421 sanction designations were active, a 933% increase since 9/11 – many countries have begun bypassing the dollar in international trade.

The Biden administration knows the seriousness of the situation, which we noted yesterday. Responding to the Chinese President’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, said that America is “not asking nations to choose between the U.S. and China.”

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Unfortunately, many countries have already made their choice, which doesn’t bode well for the United States. The GOP House must force the Biden administration to realign its priorities so that America legitimately gains back the mantle of global superpower, not just as a star among a few countries.

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