President Joe Biden is in New York City on Tuesday for a week of high-level talks at the United Nations General Assembly, where he will seek to cement his legacy on foreign policy, an issue that has been a focal point of the one-time Senate Foreign Relation Committee chair’s decadeslong political career.
“When President Biden came to office nearly four years ago, he pledged to restore American leadership on the world stage, and given that this is the president's last General Assembly, it's a chance for him to talk about how this approach has produced results, real achievements for the American people and for the world,” a senior administration official told reporters on a call Monday to discuss Biden’s engagements.
Biden, the officials said, will use his time in New York to make the case that his vision for a world in which countries work together to solve problems is superior to the alternative view of his “competitors.” Former President Donald Trump and some in the Republican party have recently moved to embrace a more isolationist view of America’s place on the world stage — a stance Biden has previously warned against.
“This stands in contrast to some of our competitors, who have a more cynical and transactional worldview,” the official added. “One where countries interpret their self interest very narrowly and don't work together for the common good.”
The president will also emphasize the importance of effective global institutions, calling for reforms and a focus on strengthening the United Nations, specifically the Security Council, an official added.
Those on the call also cited climate, the need to boost systems to provide humanitarian assistance to end “brutal wars” and artificial intelligence as an important topics this week.
Biden is set to kick off his engagements Tuesday morning with a speech to the UN General Assembly before meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Later Tuesday, the president will host a summit focused on synthetic drug threats and separately deliver remarks on the “urgent need” to combat climate change.
On Wednesday, Biden will meet with the president of Vietnam, To Lam , where the two will discuss their “shared interest in stability and prosperity in Southeast Asia,” an official told reporters. He will then participate in a Ukraine-focused meeting before hosting leaders for a reception at The Met.
The summit on synthetic drugs, officials said, will build off of the coalition Biden launched in June 2023 to address the synthetic drug crisis around the world. An official noted that Biden and other countries taking part will announce new initiatives to further the effort at tomorrow’s summit.
“Now we have the latest provisional data released from the Center for Disease Control, National Center for Health Statistics, showing an unprecedented decline in overdose deaths of roughly 10% from April 2023 to April 2024,” the official said, “But there's a lot more to be done, and the global coalition's work recognizes that we need a global solution to a global problem.”
Biden’s stop in New York comes amid a surge in violence between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, escalating longstanding concerns about the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas could expand into a wider regional conflict. Biden himself told reporters on Sunday that he was worried about a growing conflict but said the U.S. was doing “everything we can” to avoid a wider war.
“I have no doubt that the situation in the Middle East will be an important theme in a lot of the meetings, not just that the president has, but other senior U.S. officials who will be convening to talk about about various aspects of the crisis and what we can do to stabilize the situation,” an official said on the call.