Vice President Kamala Harris is following through on her plans to visit Singapore and Vietnam in the coming days despite fallout from the administration’s haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Given our global leadership role, we can and we must manage developments in one region while simultaneously advancing our strategic interests in other regions on other issues,” a White House official told The Washington Post. “The United States has many interests around the world, and we are well-equipped to pursue them all at the same time.”
Her office said earlier this month that the trip “will build on the Biden-Harris Administration’s message to the world: America is back.”
The statement continued: "The Vice President's visit will emphasize the importance of comprehensive engagement and strategic partnerships -- key components of our Administration's approach to foreign policy."
This is quite an awkward message to be promoting amid the humiliating situation in Afghanistan, including in the eyes of foreign allies.
U.S. allies complain that they were not fully consulted on a policy decision that potentially puts their own national security interests at risk — in contravention of President Biden's promises to recommit to global engagement.
And many around the world are wondering whether they could rely on the United States to fulfill long-standing security commitments stretching from Europe to East Asia.
"Whatever happened to 'America is back'?" said Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Defense Committee in the British Parliament, citing Biden's foreign policy promise to rebuild alliances and restore U.S. prestige damaged during the Trump administration.
"People are bewildered that after two decades of this big, high-tech power intervening, they are withdrawing and effectively handing the country back to the people we went in to defeat," Ellwood said. "[…]
[S]ome German officials and lawmakers are seething at Washington's failure to consult coalition partners such as Berlin, Clüver Ashbrook said. […]
"The Biden administration came to office promising an open exchange, a transparent exchange with its allies. They said the transatlantic relationship would be pivotal," she said. "As it is, they're playing lip service to the transatlantic relationship and still believe European allies should fall into line with U.S. priorities." […]"What's happening in Afghanistan is raising alarm bells everywhere," said Riad Kahwaji, who heads the Inegma security consultancy in the United Arab Emirates, which hosts one of the biggest American military contingents in the Middle East.
"The U.S.'s credibility as an ally has been in question for a while," he said. "We see Russia fighting all the way to protect the Assad regime [in Syria], and now the Americans are pulling out and leaving a big chaos in Afghanistan." (WaPo)
To make matters worse, the stop in Vietnam comes as many have likened the situation in Afghanistan to the fall of Saigon in 1975, raising "the possibility of the worst photo op for an American in that country since Jane Fonda donned a helmet there in 1972," Fox News reported.
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