However, the first signs indicate that Mr Biden is moving more slowly on the world stage than he is at home. And that’s partly based on his belief, his national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview, that the United States will only regain its global influence after taming the pandemic, restoring economic growth and resetting its relations with allies.
The most telling of his decisions concerns Saudi Arabia. After banning arms sales to stop what he described as a “catastrophic” war in Yemen, Mr Biden released an intelligence report on Prince Mohammed’s role in the assassination of dissident Jamal Khashoggi and imposed new sentences on the personal king of the Crown Prince Guard, the so-called Rapid Intervention Force. But Mr Biden stopped at the next step – apart from travel or the threat of criminal prosecution of the 35-year-old Crown Prince.
The president had not told staff in advance whether he would be in favor of direct action, despite saying in the campaign that the Saudi leadership had “no redeeming social value”.
Mr. Sullivan said he and his staff went to Mr. Biden with “a broad recommendation that recalibrating the relationship rather than breaking the relationship is the right course of action.”
Mr Biden, Mr Sullivan, said, “pushed us into our assumptions as he worked through the pros and cons of all aspects of the policy,” including the staff’s conclusion that the best way to do this was to keep a channel open for the Crown Prince . solve the war in Yemen. “
But the final decision was a reminder, other aides said, that Mr. Biden emerged from his three decades in the Senate with a belief in cultivating even the toughest of alliances – and a dose of realism that the United States couldn’t prevent the Crown Prince from doing, to become the next king.
“Unfortunately, every day we deal with heads of state and government who are responsible for actions that we find either offensive or disgusting, whether it is Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping,” said Antony J. Blinken, undersecretary of state and the longest serving foreign policy advisor to Mr Biden, said on PBS NewsHour on Wednesday.
