https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-collapse-american-leadership-monica-crowley

It turns out that going from America First to America Last has real world consequences.

President Joe Biden’s rejection of President Donald Trump’s approach to national security and foreign policy has created devastating harm to American interests abroad and our security at home.

 

Trump’s main goal was to prioritize our interests, thereby leveraging American power to deliver greater global stability, certainty and relative peace. Biden prioritizes multilateralism and globalism, reversing Trump-era gains and introducing increasing chaos, instability, uncertainty and conflict.

President Trump’s critics often complained his America First policies were damaging our alliances and rewarding our enemies. The exact opposite was true: like President Ronald Reagan before him, Trump delivered peace through strength. Biden has diluted American power, and as a result, our allies no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us. American weakness always invites the wolves, and the wolves have returned.

Let’s recall where we were just one year ago.

  • The Trump administration had provided unwavering support to Israel and achieved historic peace agreements in the Middle East, agreements which cultivated economic and other cooperation that, in turn, is delivering enduring peace.
  • It had successfully pushed back on China’s economic aggression, human rights abuses, and geopolitical adventurism in the South China Sea and Pacific Rim.
  • It had successfully contained Russia’s expansionism and slowed the progress of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
  • It had productive diplomacy underway to contain North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
  • It had withdrawn from the catastrophic Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and was using its extensive sanctions authority to restrict Iran’s nuclear program.
  • It had negotiated a plan for a managed, conditional exit from Afghanistan that would have secured us a continuing intelligence capability.
  • It had realigned our relationship with our NATO allies, holding them to their promises of the alliance.
  • It had successfully negotiated fairer, more reciprocal trade deals with China, Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Japan, among others.
  • It had begun to modernize and rebuild our military, left hollowed out by the Obama-Biden administration.
  • It had largely solved the immigration issue through a more secure border and commonsense diplomatic agreements.

The Biden administration is hell-bent on reversing many of President Trump’s stunning achievements.

On the surface, the Biden administration’s destructive path doesn’t make sense. But to them, it’s not about rational policy. Instead, it’s about redistributing everything American: our power, wealth, resources, military and diplomatic advantage, economic competitiveness, leadership, our borders, and yes, our unique exceptionalism.

Just in the last 11 months, America has ceded a tremendous amount of power, credibility and prestige. Biden’s shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan is partially to blame, of course. But Biden’s pandering, apologies and multilateral, globalist agenda are doing the true damage.

 

The result is as predictable as it is dangerous: America’s enemies are emboldened to threaten us and our interests.

China remains unaccountable for its handling of COVID-19, its threats to Taiwan and Hong Kong, its increasingly aggressive behavior in the Pacific and beyond, and its widespread human rights abuses.

Biden created crisis at the southern border, empowering criminals, human traffickers and cartels to flourish.

Biden’s defeat in Afghanistan created a humanitarian disaster. The power vacuum he left behind is being filled by the Taliban, ISIS, al Qaeda, China, Russia, Pakistan, and Iran. Our homeland is now more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Iran is marching toward a nuclear weapon as it exploits Biden’s puppy-dog eagerness to resurrect the treacherous JCPOA.

Russia has amassed 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine, is strengthening political, military and economic cooperation with China, and now enjoys a free hand to engage in energy extortion of our European allies.

 

The Biden administration deliberately crippled domestic energy production, sending fuel prices soaring and leaving the president to beg OPEC and other hostile foreign energy-producing regimes to increase output – a plea that has fallen on deaf ears. The military is being undermined by oppressive vaccine mandates and rampant wokeism.

 

Leadership matters, and unfortunately we’ve only begun to see the perilous consequences of Biden’s actions. Under the Trump administration, America’s preeminence had been restored and our extraordinary power – economically, diplomatically, politically, culturally – was being used to bring about greater stability and peace. Under the Biden administration, American weakness is jeopardizing the safety and security of the American people.

We’ve seen this movie before, and it doesn’t end well. This time, however, the consequences are as momentous as they’ve ever been. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has said that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Now that he’s president, nothing, unfortunately, has changed. Biden’s collapse of leadership is America’s collapse of leadership – and we will all bear the consequences.