In spite of being confronted with an unprecedented pandemic crisis back home and having to put its way through to announce yet another stimulus package of $ 1.9 Trillion package for the US. The new administration headed by Joe Bidden and Kamala Harris has wasted no time in trying to undo some of the major foreign policy decisions taken by the previous administration of the Donald Trump. It has taken up a decision to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and WHO straightaway. Not to get back its ten thousand troops from Germany as earlier ordered by the previous administration and with holding of it support to Saudi Arabia on its war with neighbouring Yemen backed by Iran.
But what remains to be seen is what it can do to regain the trust and confidence of its European allies which stands considerably eroded in the past administration. As Donald Trump was completely against the US acting as a big brother and bearing the burden of their security unless they would be ready to share and pay for it as well. He thought American tax payers’ money and resources were getting spent and used for others while as they themselves were doing very little to support it or commit their resources or men. He was himself a strong believer in the America first policy and was not willing to put his troops in the line of fire for the sake others or for the sake of glory alone. Left to him he would have decided to leave the UN itself.
How the new administration is going to get Iran back on the track or deal with the state of Israel is yet to be seen. As Iran is reported to have taken up its uranium enrichment capacity to a next higher level ever since the US has pulled out from the treaty it had signed with it along with other of its Western allies to freeze it. And in the meantime one of its top military General Sardar Qasem Soleimani having been killed in the US drone attack in Bagdad and a top most nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh killed in Tehran itself in a high tech remote controlled espionage operation. Both countries are right now pursuing a policy of wait and watch and do not want to make any first move.
While as on other hand Israel is proceeding ahead with the building of one after the other new settlements on the Palestine lands without caring for the UN ban on such illegal constructions and is in no mood to work for the two state solution for the resolving of this long standing vexatious conflict in the region.
Other formidable foreign policy challenges for the new administration are how to deal with China and North Korea. As China on the one hand is trying to spread its economic and military dominance all over the world and on the other is encouraging North Korea to take up a defiant stand as against the US. How it may be able to seek the release of Russian Opposition leader Alexei Navlany who has been arrested immediately after his return from Germany after receiving treatment over there. And how about slaughter of democracy in Myanmar and detention of Aung San Suu Ki’s after her resounding election victory in the recently held elections over there. How is it going to supporting the democratic movement in the Hong Kong or how to prevent a possibility of a forcible takeover of Taiwan by China in the near foreseeable future.
Anyways these are difficult problems for old or new adminstration and always do not have an easy way out.