US President Joe Biden on Thursday ended Washington’s support for Saudi Arabia’s devastating war in Yemen and dramatically increased the welcome to refugees, ushering in a major reset in the nation’s foreign policy.
In his first major speech on foreign affairs as president, Biden also froze former US president Donald Trump’s plans to redeploy troops from Germany and vowed a tough approach against what he described as a rising authoritarian threat from China and Russia.
Two weeks into their term, Biden and US Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to the Department of State in a symbol of a renewed focus on diplomacy after Trump’s tumultuous four years.
Photo: AFP
“America is back. Diplomacy is back,” Biden told a socially distanced auditorium of diplomats.
In a speech shortly afterward in the ornate Benjamin Franklin room, Biden said that Washington would end all support, including connected arms sales, for ally Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, which he said “has created a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”
He appointed a US special envoy for Yemen, veteran diplomat Timothy Lenderking, who Biden said would support UN efforts to reach a ceasefire, and revive peace talks between the government and Houthi rebels who control much of the country, including the capital, Sana’a.
The US will work “to ensure that humanitarian aid is reaching the Yemeni people who are suffering unendurable devastation,” he said. “This war has to end.”
Activists have been pushing to end US support for the war in Yemen, where 80 percent of the population is surviving on aid in what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Trump offered US logistical assistance and sales, including of precision-guided bombs, saying that Saudi Arabia was creating US defense jobs. He also viewed the war as a way to hit back at the Houthis’ ally, Iran.
Biden backs a return of diplomacy and a nuclear accord with Iran but, strikingly, he only indirectly mentioned Tehran in what was billed as a broad-brush speech on his international priorities.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he would quickly revisit Trump’s last-minute designation of the Houthis as a terrorist group — a move that aid groups say effectively criminalizes vital humanitarian work.
In Yemen, senior political official Hamid Assem voiced hope that Biden’s plan would mark the end of a six-year war that has left tens of thousands dead.
“The Biden administration saw that the war in Yemen carries a heavy cost and that America’s reputation has been tarnished by the killing of the people of Yemen,” he said.
In another sharp reversal, Biden said the US would welcome up to 125,000 refugees in the first fiscal year of his administration — far above the record-low 15,000 last approved by Trump.
“The United States’ moral leadership on refugee issues was a point of bipartisan consensus for so many decades when I first got here,” said Biden, who was elected to the US Senate in 1972.
“We shine the light, the lamp, of liberty on oppressed people. And our example pushed other countries to open wide their doors as well,” he said.
Among groups seeking asylum, Biden said his administration would welcome LGBTQ people fleeing persecution over their sexual orientation.
Biden also put on hold plans set in motion by Trump to reduce the US troop presence in Germany, a cornerstone of NATO security since the start of the Cold War.
Trump’s decision was seen as linked to his tense relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel — whose welcome to mostly Syrian migrants he belittled.
US Secretary of Defense Austin Lloyd later said that he had ordered a Pentagon review of US military “force posture” around the world.
“We will consult our allies and partners as we conduct this review,” Lloyd said in a statement. “No one succeeds at this business alone.”
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