As president, Biden sought to restore faith in the United States' abilities as a world leader, but was tested by a number of significant crises and wars abroad — and by opposition at home. This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, national security correspondent Greg Myre, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. The podcast is produced by Kelli Wessinger, and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics. A previous version of this episode incorrectly stated that the first impeachment inquiry into President Trump based on a phone call to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky occurred before Joe Biden decided to run for president in 2020. The phone call occurred after Biden launched his run for president. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This message comes from Progressive and it's name your price tool.
Say how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show coverage options within your budget.
Visit progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law.
Hey there.
It's the NPR Politics podcast.
I'm Susan Davis.
I cover politics.
I'm Greg Myhre, and I cover national security.
And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.
And today on the show, we're going to look back at President Biden's foreign policy record.
Mara, I want to start with a big picture thought here.
Former President Donald Trump's first term marked a very clear shift in American foreign policy.
He said the US Was spending way too much to help defend allies, and the policy should move to what we now know as, quote, america first policy.
When Biden won in 2020, he tried to rebuild and add to those alliances.
Did he succeed?
I think in large part he did, although the story of Biden's foreign policy I think could be titled tbd because we don't know how a lot of these foreign policy efforts are going to work out.
But he certainly rebuilt the Western alliance, NATO.
This is a organization of democratic countries, the United States and Canada and Europe, that Donald Trump had belittled and derided and threatened to pull out of.
And Biden did rebuild those alliances, and he kept the Western alliance together to support Ukraine.
He's had some criticism that he didn't send Ukraine enough lethal weapons fast enough, but there's no doubt that he was a staunch supporter of Ukraine.