WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is appearing before the United Nations this week, eager to advocate for the world to act precipitously on coronavirus, climate change and human rights abuses. His advocacy for a greater global partnership comes at a time when allies are growing increasingly skeptical about the scale of the changes that US foreign policy has actually made since Donald Trump left the White House.
Biden plans to limit his time at the United Nations General Assembly due to coronavirus concerns. He is due to meet Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday and address the assembly on Tuesday before moving the rest of the week’s diplomacy to virtual settings and Washington.
At a COVID-19 virtual summit it is hosting on Wednesday, leaders will be called on to step up vaccine sharing commitments, address global oxygen shortages and address other critical issues related to the pandemic .
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The president also invited the phone number library prime ministers of Australia, India and Japan, which are part of a Pacific alliance, to Washington and is expected to meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the White House.
Through it all, Biden will be the subject of a quiet assessment from the allies: Has he kept his campaign promise to be a better partner than Trump?
Biden’s senior envoy to the United Nations, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, offered a smooth response above all diplomacy: “We believe our priorities are not just US priorities, they are global priorities,” he said. she said on Friday.