President Joe Biden, addressing the virtual meeting of the Munich Security Conference, declared “America is back” and rededicated the United States to its partnerships and allies in Europe, CBS News reports.
“America is back. I speak to you today as president of the United States at the very start of my administration, and I’m sending a clear message to the world — America is back,” Biden stated.
Biden noted that the United States will face the issues facing the Western world, from Chinese trade practices to Russian cyberattacks to the Iranian nuclear program. Biden asserted that the US would work with its European partners to manage these international concerns, and he restated US commitment to NATO, an organization his predecessor compromised through threats to defund and exit.
Concerning Russia, an aggressor nation Donald Trump frequently kowtowed to, Biden stated that the US and European countries would ban together to resist Russian attempts to undermine democracy in their countries and in emerging democracies like Ukraine.
Also Friday, Biden was fully involved in a virtual G-7 meetings about the coronavirus pandemic, unlike his predecessor who would make a brief appearance at the meetings, if he would attend at all. Biden committed $4 billion to COVAX, the World Health Organization’s program to provide coronavirus vaccines around the world.