WASHINGTON – Among President Biden’s most specific promises on foreign policy was the promise to convene a global democracy summit during his first year in office. The rally is intended to take a public stand against the authoritarian and populist tides that arose during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, and, as Mr. Biden and his advisers see this as threatening to suppress Western political values.
In the weeks since Mr. Biden’s election, however, was America’s own democracy staggering. This month, a crowd of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, disrupting the sacred peaceful transfer of power. Next week, the Senate will hold its second presidential indictment on Mr. Trump begins. Republicans in Congress are ready to draft a legislative timetable by Mr. Pray to hinder every step.
The feeling of a dysfunctional, if not completely broken, democratic system makes foreign competitors crow – and this indicates that the United States has no business dosing other nations.
“America no longer signs the course and has therefore lost all right to determine it,” Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Russian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote on Facebook after the riot in the Capitol. “And, even more, to impose it on others.”
Americans can ‘be proud of their democracy and freedom’, Hua Chunying, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, recently told reporters. But after witnessing so much political chaos, she added: “deep down they hope they can lead a life like the Chinese do.”
Administration officials say that neither opportunistic comments from foreign competitors nor recent expressions of gullible skepticism from foreign policy analysts at home, the plan that Mr. ways to internally strengthen and protect their own systems against threats such as corruption, election security, disinformation and the authoritarian model that has gripped China and Russia and seeped into countries such as Turkey and Brazil.
Mr. Biden wrote in foreign affairs last year, saying that the opportunity ‘is to renew the spirit and shared purpose of the nations of the free world. It will bring the world’s democracies together to strengthen our democratic institutions, confront honorable countries that are deteriorating and forge a common agenda. ”
A person familiar with the summit planning, which was already underway before the election, said Mr. Biden is uncomfortable with the recent political dispute in the United States and is likely to host an event with fellow heads of state, although details such as timing and location have not been determined. Others familiar with the process said they would expect an event by the end of the year. A White House official did not respond to a request for comment.
In Washington, however, a debate over the idea erupted among former U.S. government officials and academics. It now has plans for the summit, but it raises greater concerns about the country’s role as a world leader in the post-Trump era.
The immediate question is whether the political crisis is a reason to postpone the plan for the summit and reconsider the pressure to promote the democratic model around the world, as some claim.
‘The United States has lost credibility; there is no doubt about it, ”said James Goldgeier, a professor of international relations at the US University and a former assistant to the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. In a recent essay on foreign affairs, he argued that Mr. Biden should rather hold a democracy summit at home – one that focuses on ‘injustice and inequality’ in the United States, including issues such as suffrage and disinformation.
“If you have a total roster on Capitol Hill and you do not have the ability to get things done to improve people’s lives, you are not going to enforce much moral authority,” he said. Goldgeier added.
“How can the United States spread democracy or set an example for others if they barely have a functioning democracy at home?” Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote in Foreign Policy this month. “Washington’s foreign policy elite remains committed to maintaining a three-decade foreign policy aimed at reforming the world in America’s image. They are completely blown away by what the image has become in 2020. ”
Biden administration officials say this criticism creates a false choice between restoring the country’s power at home and its position abroad.
During public remarks in August, Jake Sullivan, who is currently Mr. Biden’s national security adviser is, speaking of ‘the intersection between domestic policy and foreign policy, not only as an abstract idea, but also as the core of our grand strategy.’
“Any effective strategy for American involvement in the world must begin with the deep investment in the strength of our own democracy and democratic institutions,” he said. Sullivan said, “and ongoing in issues such as dealing with systemic racism.”
With the work in progress, advocates for holding a summit say it will be an important moment for the world after four years in which Trump defeated the leaders of strongman like President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Kim Jong-un of North Korea and Crown praised. Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who confirms their arguments that stability and firm central control are more important than civil society and popular will.
“I feel very strongly that the events of the past few weeks – and years – make it necessary” to hold a summit, said Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, and the former top State Department of Human Rights and Democracy in the Obama said. administration.
He argued that the Capitol riot and Trump’s wider attempt to overthrow the election results demonstrated the resilience of America’s core institutions. “No one should look at these events and suggest that they undermine the strength of our example,” he said.
Mr Malinowski and other proponents of the summit conceded that it brought practical complications, especially among those who would be exactly invited to attend.
In his essay on Foreign Affairs, Mr. Biden said his summit could be based on President Barack Obama’s four nuclear security summits, in which world leaders met to share ideas and make specific promises about reducing and securing nuclear weapons.
Mr. Biden added that his organizations would include ‘those who are on the front lines in defense of democracy’ and provide a ‘call to action’ to technology and social media enterprises that become ships for anti-democratic disinformation.
Yet countries such as Turkey, Poland and Hungary, all NATO allies, seem to be democracies, but countries are increasingly defined by authoritarian practices. Critics ask whether they should be invited and enticed to adopt reforms, or exclude them from denying the status and stature of democratic etiquette.
One approach would be to create a D-10 group of democracies, a concept devised by the State Department during the George W. Bush administration, in which Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South -Korea and the European Union.
Whatever form it takes, supporters of the idea say it would be a distant echo of Mr. Bush’s great “freedom agenda”, his call to transform autocracies in the Middle East into democracies that many now see as an example of hubris of the United States.
“This must be done with humility and serious honesty about our shortcomings, and the fact that we are not exporting an American model,” said Thomas Carothers, a senior vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Several supporters of the Democracy Summit agree that the political chaos calls for a deeply humble approach.
“I do not think what he is teaching the world about democracy,” said Gayle Smith, a former senior director of development and democracy in the Obama administration.
“President Biden understands very well, and we have obviously seen that democracy is not something you declare as ‘democracy’, and that we are done,” she said. Smith, who is now the president and CEO of the One Campaign, which advocates poverty and disease worldwide. “It’s an ongoing process.”