One message with eight contents

Not long after two major speeches of new US president Joe Biden on America's future foreign policy, his Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered the first major one since having had sworn-in as the US's top diplomat. And he sent one massage with eight main contents to Americans and to the world outside America.

Antony Blinken. Photo: the US Department of State

In their nature, these contents aren't new and their public announcement by the new US foreign minister surprised no one. The mainstreams of the US foreign policy were already set by Joe Biden himself and what his Secretary of State have just done has only been the first and early concretization of Biden's orientations. It is the domestic policy which dominates and determinates the foreign policy, at lease just at present and for the time coming. 

It is the defining the principal role of the foreign policy to serve Biden's administration to achieve already proclaimed domestic and foreign policy goals, first of all to get the corona virus pandemic under control and to push it back, to restore economic growth and to create jobs, to "renew democracy" in the US, to reform the immigration system, to "revitalize US's relations with its allies and partners" in the world, to "tackle the climate crisis and drive a green energy revolution", to secure for the US the leadership in technology and, last but not least, to deal with China as "the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century". 

With this foreign policy, the US hopes to successfully come back on world stage, to regain roles and influences in the world politics and credibility among allies and partners, but first and foremost to solve when not all but most urgent domestical problems at the present. 

The tonnage of Joe Biden and Antony Blinken has been and is still the same: domestical issues first and foreign politic dossiers range behind. The approach of both is to try to maintain the situation of relative quiet and calm outside the US in order to fully concentrate to follow their domestic agenda in the first time of Biden's presidency. 

They increase warnings and deterrence against China and Russia, North Korea and Iran with their aims not to escalate its conflicts and confrontations with these countries at the moment and also for the time coming. Later on, and only after getting the domestic situation in the US under control, the administration would imply other and different approaches and strategies to its real foreign policy.

Now, it is quite clear about the main orientations of the Biden's foreign policy and its temporal priorities setting. But the big question how they will be implemented in concrete is still awaiting its answer as like as the uncertainty about whether the new US administration would finally succeed.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by Ambassador Tran Duc Mau are of his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Hanoitimes.