Biden signals US will refocus on diplomacy abroad

Asserting a broad reset of American foreign policy, President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would halt the withdrawal of U.S. troops stationed in Germany, end support for Saudi Arabia's military offensive in Yemen and make support for LGBTQ rights a cornerstone of diplomacy.

With Biden's visit to the State Department Wednesday, White House officials said he was hoping to send an unambiguous signal to the world that the United States is ready to resume its role as a global leader after four years in which Trump pressed an “America First” agenda.

Trump last year, despite congressional resistance, announced plans to redeploy about 9,500 of the roughly 34,500 U.S. troops stationed in Germany, which hosts key American military facilities like the Ramstein Air Base and the headquarters for U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command.

Biden also said he would issue a presidential memorandum that will address protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals worldwide.

As a candidate, Biden pledged to prioritize LGBTQ rights on the international stage, promising to use “America’s full range of diplomatic tools” to promote equality.

Biden also announced that he will increase the cap on the number of refugees allowed into the United States to more than eight times the level at which the Trump administration left it.

Trump drastically reduced the cap to only 15,000.

Biden’s plan would raise it to 125,000, surpassing the ceiling set by President Barack Obama before he left office by 15,000.

The timing of Biden's visit so early in his term is deliberate, as much symbolic as it is a nod to his interest in foreign policy and his years as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he represented Delaware.

Trump had waited more than a year to visit the department, making his first appearance only for the swearing-in of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018, and repeatedly assailed it as part of a “deep state” out to undermine his administration. Trump denigrated and dismissed its employees and unsuccessfully tried over multiple years to slash its budget by up to 35%.

Biden, by contrast, chose longtime confidant Antony Blinken to be his secretary of state, aiming to reinvigorate an American diplomatic corps that had been depleted and demoralized under four years of the Trump administration.

He was greeted by employees eager to hear that diplomacy has returned to the top of the presidential agenda and that the expertise of long-serving foreign service officers will be valued.