Biden faces foreign policy trouble spots as he aims to highlight his experience on the global stage

WASHINGTON — This in all probability wasn’t how President Joe Biden envisioned his massive overseas coverage week ending.

Biden spent a lot of the time making an attempt to make the case to world leaders on the U.N. Basic Meeting in addition to to Democratic donors and voters that his a long time of overseas coverage expertise and demonstrated ethical readability set him aside from Donald Trump, the early front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

However simply as Biden is seeking to highlight his overseas coverage chops together with his 2024 reelection bid heating up, he’s dealing with a rising record of nationwide safety complications, a number of of which emerged in current days.

There’s a diplomatic spat between U.S. allies Canada and India over the killing of a Sikh activist on Canadian soil, rising concern about the way forward for U.S. funding for Ukraine, and the indictment of the influential chairman of the Senate International Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. Every will take a look at Biden and his administration.

Menendez and his spouse have been indicted Friday on federal bribery fees that allege the lawmaker offered delicate authorities info and took different steps to secretly help Egypt’s authorities in change for some $480,000 in money, gold bars and a luxurious automobile.

Beneath Senate Democratic caucus guidelines, Menendez was compelled to step down as chairman of his committee at a second when the administration is making an attempt to push Congress to move an extra $24 billion in help to assist Ukraine repel Russian forces within the 19-month-old struggle.

“It simply provides to voter fatigue,” mentioned Ross Baker, a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers College in New Jersey, talking in regards to the impression of the Menendez fees. “It is moments like these that recognition wears, credibility wears skinny — particularly with a phase of the citizens that is already cynical. No politician desires to should compensate for one thing like this.”

The president can also be dealing with rising international concern that future U.S. help for Ukraine may turn out to be captive to a looming U.S. authorities shutdown.

Biden on Thursday hosted Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the White Home. The Ukrainian chief additionally visited with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to induce that the US sustain its help.

Biden desires the cash included in a authorities funding measure. However some in probably the most conservative wing of the Republican Celebration aligned with Trump are pushing for that help to be not noted of the invoice. The overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats favor continued assist for Ukraine.

“I’m relying on the nice judgment of the US Congress,” Biden informed reporters as he and his high advisers met with Zelenskyy. “There’s no various.”

Biden has stepped up his assaults on Trump’s overseas coverage report, casting the previous president and his shut Republican allies as lackeys for Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his U.N. deal with, Biden additionally took credit score for galvanizing allies to face as much as Putin and for renewing American management across the globe.

Biden, 80, has confronted growing skepticism about his age from voters, together with some Democrats. He supplied maybe his most fulsome argument this previous week about the advantages of getting a veteran politician within the White Home at a fragile second for the world.

“When Russia invaded Ukraine, I knew what to do — as a result of I’ve been doing it for an extended, very long time,” Biden informed donors at a New York Metropolis fundraiser this week.

He’ll want that have as he tries to navigate tensions between Canada and India over the June killing of the Indian-born Sikh separatist chief Hardeep Singh Nijjar in suburban Vancouver. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mentioned on Monday that there have been “credible allegations” of Indian involvement within the killing by masked gunmen of Nijjar, who had been wished by India for years.

The declare has been dismissed by Indian officers as absurd. India on Thursday stopped issuing visas to Canadian residents and ordered Ottawa to cut back its diplomatic presence within the nation. The Canadian overseas ministry mentioned it was adjusting its employees ranges at missions in India over considerations in regards to the security of its diplomats.

Biden has not publicly commented on the matter. White Home nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday mentioned the U.S. has had and can proceed to have “high-level” contact with New Delhi on the matter.

The scenario may complicate Biden’s dealings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a essential ally as Biden seeks to place larger deal with the Indo-Pacific within the face of China’s rising financial may and army assertiveness.

Along with shared considerations about China, the U.S. and India need to work extra carefully on the challenges posed by local weather change, synthetic intelligence, international provide chain resilience and different points.

The dispute between Canada and India “will in all probability result in just a little bit extra consternation within the U.S.-Canada relationship, however I believe we’re keen to threat that just a little bit for the upside, which is constructing this relationship with India,” mentioned Richard Rossow, chair of U.S.-India coverage research on the Heart for Strategic and Unbiased Research in Washington.

The corruption allegations towards Menendez, a fellow Democrat who performs an essential function on overseas issues, is a distraction that Biden may do with out.

White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to remark Friday on the indictment.

The Biden administration hasn’t at all times seen eye to eye with Menendez.

Final 12 months, the senator blasted the White Home after Biden administration officers visited Caracas for talks with members of Venezuelan chief Nicolás Maduro’s authorities in an effort to deliver dwelling detained People and rebuild relations with the South American oil big. Menendez additionally has been essential of the administration’s efforts to resurrect the 2015 Iran nuclear settlement sealed beneath President Barack Obama and scuttled by the Trump administration in 2018.

John Feeley, a retired U.S. diplomat and longtime observer of Latin America, mentioned the Menendez indictment was an “personal aim” for U.S. overseas coverage — utilizing the soccer time period for when gamers inadvertently put the ball into their very own internet.

“With out prejudging final result, the indictment alone is a present to dictators and authoritarians in Havana, Caracas and Nicaragua,” mentioned Feeley, who resigned as U.S. ambassador to Panama in 2018 over what he noticed because the ethical failings of the Trump administration. “They may level to all of his allegations of their corruption as normal U.S. hypocrisy by leaping to the conclusion he’s responsible.”