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October 6, 2021 | FDD Tracker: August 28 – October 6, 2021
Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: September
David Adesnik
Senior Fellow and Director of Research
Trend Overview
Edited by David Adesnik
Welcome back to the Biden Administration Foreign Policy Tracker. Once a month, we ask FDD’s experts and scholars to assess the administration’s foreign policy. They provide trendlines of very positive, positive, neutral, negative, or very negative for the areas they watch. While Americans observed the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the Taliban gave key ministerial posts to U.S.- and UN-designated terrorists, including close allies of al-Qaeda. Iran’s ultra-hardline president also unveiled his Cabinet, which includes terrorists wanted by Interpol as well as a dozen individuals under U.S., UN, or European sanctions. While it seemed that U.S. relations with Europe were destined to improve under President Joe Biden, Paris recalled its ambassador to the United States for the first time in the history of the alliance, outraged by Washington’s disruption of a $66 billion French arms deal with Australia. In contrast, the regime of Bashar al-Assad also made major strides toward diplomatic rehabilitation after Washington signaled its readiness to waive sanctions that would otherwise prevent Syrian participation in regional energy markets. Meanwhile, Beijing employed hostage diplomacy to secure the release of Meng Wanzhou, a top Huawei executive detained in Canada. Washington dropped plans to extradite Meng in exchange for the release of two Canadians held on false charges in China. As a candidate, Biden pledged that he would “rally the free world” and “champion liberty and democracy.” It is proving far more difficult than expected.