WASHINGTON (AP) – A new old ritual takes shape at the Biden White House, a ritual that starts with bulky briefing packs, war games with the ‘what if’ and discussions in Oval Office about how to deal with this or that particular American ally or adversary. .
Twelve times since taking office, President Joe Biden has called a world leader after resetting what was a long-cherished White House standard mothballed by Donald Trump: vigorous preparation. Gone are unnecessary digressions and over-the-top over-the-top flattering or taunting fellow heads of state.
The changes in telephone diplomacy are about both style and substance, as Biden has tried to send the message to foreign leaders – many exasperated by Trump’s habit of cursing his counterparts and confusing personal interests with U.S. national security – that Biden is determined to destroy America’s relationship with restore the world.
“They have come to believe that they need to manage alliances properly right away,” said Matthew Goodman, who worked in the White House of the National Security Council during the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations. “It’s a central organizing principle as they try to turn Trump’s page and get alliances back on track. Preparation for calls is part of this. “
Biden’s Foreign Policy will ultimately be judged more on results than on form or preparation. But his approach so far is a marked change from Trump, who seemed to have a better rapport with autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korean Kim Jong Un than with many historic American allies. The former president regularly strayed from phone calls and advised his aides for his dialogue with world leaders.
Leaked transcripts of talks showed that a few days after Trump deposed his administration with diplomatic niceties and hindered Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to publicly saying that Mexico would never pay for a southern border wall, a signature call from the president’s 2016 campaign. Trump also complained to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that he forced Trump to pass the most “unpleasant call” and was “worse than me” for detaining refugees on small islands off the coast of Australia.
In particular, the Republican President’s 2019 appeal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy led to Trump’s impeachment after it was revealed that Trump had asked him to “please us” and investigate the activity of Biden and his son Hunter in the country. .
As has been customary with past administrations, advisers to Biden typically prepare the president ahead of the calls with a package of written background information, including summaries of recent developments in the country, a summary of past interactions with the leader, talking points on issues to be highlighted, as well as notes “if requested” to help shape the president’s response to hot-button issues his counterpart might raise.
Trump aides realized early on that the president had little patience for briefing materials or talking points. At first, they offered him a six-page pre-letter with attachments before calling, but that turned out to be too long. So they made a one-page version. Trump was later given note cards that typically contain only three talking points.
“Sweating the details of every word in a memo didn’t matter because it didn’t matter for the president to deliver the right message on behalf of the United States,” said Frances Brown, who served as a senior adviser to National Security. Council in the Trump and Obama governments. “For an NSC employee, it kind of invited an existential crisis.”
Last week, Biden called China’s Xi Jinping for a two-hour talk expressing concern about human rights violations and unfair trading practices. Previously, in an appeal with Putin, Biden condemned the capture of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and urged Putin on his country’s involvement in an extensive cyber-espionage campaign in the US.
Ahead of both calls, senior officials from the Biden administration looked to reporters for what the president intended to say, a move intended to avert potential efforts by Beijing and Moscow to contain public reports about the talks.
Biden’s first call for president went to Canadian Justin Trudeau, the prime minister who once disparaged Trump as “ very unfair and weak. ”
For Biden, the conversation with Trudeau was part difficult conversation and part easy chit-chat. Biden explained his decision to halt construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a project between Canada and the US that Trudeau supports. Biden also reminisced about his late first wife’s family ties to Toronto and his own visit to Ottawa in 2016 when Trudeau honored him with a state dinner.
The two leaders discussed the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and two Canadians imprisoned in China in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a Huawei top executive, Canadian officials said.
A senior Canadian official familiar with the call said Biden seemed well prepared for the half-hour conversation and noted that it took longer than any phone call the Prime Minister had to Trump.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has flattered and courted Trump for years, said in an interview with CBS on ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday that his conversation with Biden was ‘fantastic’ and that they had discussed issues such as climate change, the NATO, Iran and more.
In particular, the White House published an official photo van Biden met in the Oval Office with national security adviser Jake Sullivan and NSC senior director of European affairs Amanda Sloat as he prepared for his recent appeal with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
James Carafano, a national security analyst at the Conservative Heritage Foundation, said that on his first round of phone calls, Biden was primarily concerned with sending the message that he turned the page about Trump. But Carafano argues that the new president has largely avoided explaining what that means in substance for US foreign policy.
“He hasn’t really gone beyond the theme we are going to work with with friends and allies,” said Carafano.
Biden made it clear his desire to return to diplomacy after Trump pulled out of the Obama-backed international nuclear deal with Iran.
All over the world, a lot of attention is also being paid to countries that are not yet on Biden’s call list.
The new president has yet to speak to Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had a close relationship with Trump, even though the US and Turkey disagreed on a number of issues, including Syrian policies and Turkey’s decision to remove Russia’s advanced anti-aircraft missile systems. to purchase. . The latter prompted Washington to expel Turkey from its F-35 stealth fighter program.
Biden on the campaign trail called Erdogan an autocrat, and as vice president was forced to offer an official apology in 2014 after suggesting that Turkey played a role in the rise of the Islamic State group.
Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, tweeted a list of 10 countries he said had received calls from Biden on Wednesday. “Maybe now is the time to call # Israel’s leader, the # US’s best ally?” Danon posted.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said nothing should be read so far about the lack of a call. “It’s not a deliberate diss,” she said, promising that there would be an appeal to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Gillies reported from Toronto.