With the world at war UkraineMiddle East and Sudan, President Biden will discuss his foreign policy legacy Monday at the State Department in a speech expected to focus on his administration’s investment in strong global alliances and his attempt to restore America’s leadership role in the world.

When Mr. Biden took office four years ago, he sought to reassure global allies and reinstate foreign agreements that the Trump administration had withdrawn from. The president re-established strong relations with NATO leaders in the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and rejoined the Paris climate accord. But world leaders are preparing for change with the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

It is expected that Mr. Biden to argue that America’s approach to the world is what will protect America’s interests – not isolationism.

The president recently told USA Today that he helped restore ties that frayed during the Trump administration, saying he had managed a “tipping point” in history. He credited his long history on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with helping him “navigate some of the fundamental changes that are happening, whether it’s in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, the Far East.”

“The only advantage of being old is that I’ve known all the great world leaders for a long time,” Susan Page told USA Today. “And so I had a perspective on each of them and their interests.”

IN his first foreign policy speech as president, 2021Mr. Biden aimed to bridge foreign and domestic policy interests by advocating a foreign policy for the middle class. The focus was supposed to be on China and repairing the alliance, but it was disrupted by the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“The United States is in a worse geopolitical position today than it was four years ago,” says Stephen Wertheim, a historian and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The United States is plunged into a massive war on the European continent with serious risks of escalation; it has returned to bombing the Middle East with no end in sight; and it has entered into a full-spectrum strategic rivalry with China.”

Ukraine, Russia and NATO

Mr. Biden has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, becoming the first president to go to a conflict zone where U.S. troops were not involved and directing more than $183 billion in military aid since the Russian invasion in 2021. He played a key role in getting NATO to spend more to collective defense.

Still, the fierce battle continues on the front lines with no clear plan for a peace deal. Washington left to Kiev the question of when and how the negotiations should take place with the slogan “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”.

The administration was criticized early in the conflict for refraining from sending the deadliest weapons, and was later criticized by some Republicans for spending too much money on aid to Ukraine.

Mr. Biden is expected to argue that his policies ensured Ukraine’s survival as an independent state and thwarted Putin’s ambitions, a senior administration official told CBS News.

Israel-Hamas war

After Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 about Israel killing more than 1200 civilians, Mr. Biden made it clear that Israel has the right to defend itself with its administration sending billions of dollars worth of military aid.

While Israel has launched a war against Gaza that has killed more than 45,000 people according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry and led to a humanitarian crisis, the administration has not changed its stance.

In April 2023, Mr. Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that future US support for his country depends on Israel protecting civilians and aid workers in Gaza.

“Biden willingly threw away his power by immediately pledging military support to Israel; then criticizing Israeli government decisions from a self-imposed side,” Wertheim said.

The State Department notified Congress earlier this month of a planned $8 billion arms transfer to Israel. Ceasefire talks are still ongoing between Israel and Hamas as pressure mounts to reach a deal before Trump’s January 20 inauguration.

Chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan

The most obvious foreign policy failure was the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Mr. Biden has vowed to end America’s longest war and has assured Americans that the Afghan military is capable of holding off a Taliban takeover. Instead, the Taliban expanded their control of territory across the country faster than the US expected and captured Kabul after the fall of the Afghan government. The US hastily evacuated about 125,000 people, including 6,000 Americans, during its frantic withdrawal, but dozens of Afghans and 13 US soldiers were killed in a suicide attack outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Airport as thousands tried to flee the country.

US citizens and Afghan allies who supported US troops during the war were left behind. Thousands feared retaliation from the Taliban and felt abandoned by the US government, which had promised to take care of them.

Images of Afghans clinging to military aircraft in the hope of escape, and US military weapons left behind by the Taliban and paraded around have become symbols of the missteps that led to the evacuation.

In the three years since the Taliban returned to power, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups have established a presence in the country, and Afghan women and girls are deprived of basic freedoms they enjoyed two decades of Western-backed government after the 2001 US-led invasion.

China

Trump started a trade war with China and other countries during his first term, imposing tariffs aimed at deterring what he considered unfair trade practices and encouraging American consumers and businesses to buy and sell more goods produced at home. Although the rhetoric has changed under Mr. Biden, he has continued the tariff policy. And as was the case during the Trump administration, both viewed China as a security threat, not just an economic one.

The Biden administration has introduced safeguards to protect industries like chip manufacturing from relying on China. Global alliances such as the Quad – US, India, Japan and Australia – and AUKUS – Australia, US and UK – have made diplomatic and military progress in deterring China. And the Biden administration too strengthened his military alliance with Japan.

Mr. Biden was vice president when former President Barack Obama gave his “pivot to Asia” speech. American policymakers have since tried to shift the focus of foreign policy, but there have been a series of distractions along the way.

“The United States cannot expect to give China the upper hand while remaining the leading military power in Europe and the Middle East. If the United States really wants to give China the upper hand, it must retreat elsewhere,” Wertheim said.

contributed to this report.