When Joe Biden came to the White House last year, he was a glimmer of hope for Americans and the whole world, especially after Trump’s floundering term in office, which made the United States lose much of its global standing and ended with the storming of the Capitol.
Biden’s campaign promises and his affiliation with the Democratic Party made people feel that his election would put an end to racism in the United States. That is why black Americans were the main supporters of Joe Biden to win the 2020 elections.
Biden’s speeches during his election campaign and his clear criticism and rejection of Trump’s policies made the whole world hope for calm American policies that seek consensual solutions and work to end the conflicts created by Trump with China that threaten the entire world.
Furthermore, Biden’s human rights file made the Middle East expect a lot from him, especially concerning the Palestinian cause, despite Biden’s history of supporting Israeli policies.
Nevertheless, almost a year under the Biden administration, the world has realised that American policies are fixed and do not change with the change of presidents.
The first sign that the status quo would remain in place under the Biden administration, which claims to protect human rights, is the lax attitude towards the events in the Gaza Strip last May and its support for the Israeli bombing campaign that killed thousands without any humanitarian considerations.
After that, the world was surprised by the US’ decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, welcoming the handover of power to the Taliban and leaving behind a terrible humanitarian disaster, which confirmed the US’ implicit support for terrorist organisations despite attempts to show the opposite.
There is no doubt that the American people will be the first victims of this terrorist outpost that has been established in Afghanistan and will reap the results of this dubious deal shortly.
And despite the Biden administration’s attempts to deflect blame from it, as the US president said that he “inherited the agreement to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan from his predecessor, Donald Trump,” the Americans are well aware of all the facts.
According to the American Daily Wire website, Americans believe that the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan is the fault of President Joe Biden and not the fault of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
US-China relations have also not made any progress since Biden took office, despite his rejection of Trump’s hostile policies towards China. Until now, there has been no change in the course of the tense relations between the two countries, despite the holding of a virtual summit between the Chinese and American presidents.
The hostility between the world’s two superpowers has continued to grow and Chinese fighter jets have flown a record number of flights over Taiwan in recent months, and trade tensions have not abated, according to Foreign Policy magazine.
Also, nearly a year after Biden’s term in office, a return to the nuclear agreement with Iran is still “far off” according to the Washington Post, even though the US president pledged in his election campaign to revive the agreement.
The United States does not want sanctions on Iran to be lifted. At the same time, Israel is trying to thwart the negotiations, as it pressures Washington to abandon them, and threatens to resort to a military option if sanctions are lifted.
Amid these conflicts, the Biden administration seems weak and incapable of finding solutions for the success of the negotiations.
On the domestic policy level, Joe Biden still has not achieved any remarkable success. Inflation reached an unprecedented rate in 30 years last October, while high prices affected all commodities, from groceries to gas.
Although President Joe Biden said that the United States has achieved “historic progress” in the economy in the past ten months and stressed that his country “is witnessing the strongest economic recovery in the world,” the truth is that a large part of the recovery occurred during the era of former President Donald Trump.
However, this recovery is less than that of many major economies, including the United Kingdom, China, and India, according to data compiled by the International Monetary Fund.
Most importantly, Biden was able to lose many black American voters due to the failure of his policies to achieve equal distribution of the vaccine between whites and blacks. Polls have confirmed, one by one, the president’s decline in popularity. A recent Quinnipiac University poll put his popularity rate at just 33%.
Additionally, besides the successive failures internally and externally, Biden also lost many supporters within his party, as he is now at odds with moderate Democrats and liberal Democrats at the same time, making the political landscape of the US largely absurd.
Certainly, the US has lost a lot because of Trump’s reckless policies, but now it is losing more due to Biden’s lax, hesitant, and undefined policies, which is incapable of correcting the course of the country internally and externally.
Marwa Al-Shinawy: Assistant Professor at International American University for Specialised Studies (IAUS)
