CNN —
President Joe Biden has been at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy for more than 50 years, but he may have been hoping to shine a spotlight on both his own achievements and America’s leadership on the world stage through his address to more than 100 world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
But if what is already a major crisis in the Middle East worsens, the world will be looking to short-term solutions as well as sweeping statements about how Trump’s term will be marked in history.
With Israel launching a massive military offensive across Lebanon that has killed hundreds of people, including children, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, administration officials acknowledge that President Biden will have to confront that reality in his address to the UN General Assembly and in his meetings with world leaders.
At the meeting, President Biden and senior US officials will discuss what can be done to “stabilise the situation”, a senior administration official said, noting that Biden plans to “address the Middle East issue, particularly during this very difficult year that we have all been through”.
Biden is expected to push back against the rise of populist ideology around the world, including in the United States, by sending a strong message that global partners are needed to solve the world’s toughest challenges.
But the focus will be on the conflict in Gaza and the Middle East, where fears of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon have flared, as well as “peace efforts” in Ukraine, the official said, highlighting growing instability that has emerged over the past year.
The new war between Hamas and Israel has been increasingly deadly since Biden messaged in 2023 that the world is at a “tipping point,” and U.S. efforts to broker a ceasefire to stop the fighting and release hostages held by the terrorist group have stalled in recent weeks. The situation in the region was further complicated by Israel’s bold strikes against Hezbollah last week, sparking an increase in attacks on both sides of the Lebanese border.
“The world has changed and in many ways it’s become more difficult,” one senior administration official said.
Trump is also expected to speak out about the Russia-Ukraine conflict this week, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he plans to present Biden with a plan for winning the war, and has asked Biden to use Western-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia, a request that remains unresolved.
All of this means that the threat from China, which the Biden administration has long characterized as a “pace challenge,” has been put on the back burner.
In New York, world leaders will be preoccupied with a growing number of global issues, while just weeks away from elections that will determine America’s role as champion, supporter and leading arms supplier to the world’s democracies. Biden will formally represent the US at the conference, while former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will each meet with world leaders to strengthen relationships and outline their own goals.
In his speech on Sunday, Biden said he was concerned about escalating tensions in the Middle East, but reiterated his view that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas remains possible, which US officials believe would ease tensions across the region.
“We’re going to do everything in our power to prevent a larger war from breaking out, and we’re still trying hard,” he told reporters at the White House.
White House officials say Biden plans to look beyond those concerns and focus on longer-term priorities like climate change, which he will address in a separate, solo address. The president is expected to reaffirm the need for restored U.S. climate leadership and make the case for continuing those efforts in the coming years as he looks toward the end of his term.
“What the president is signaling is a fundamental shift in America’s strategy, focusing not on a pessimistic outlook but on the enormous economic opportunity,” White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters, adding that the speech will be “an opportunity to deliver a definitive mid-year report of the decade that lays out the progress we’ve made, our agenda and the way forward.”
On Tuesday, President Biden will host a summit of the Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, which will include an announcement by 11 coalition nations of new efforts to advance efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking around the world, as well as new pledges from all key coalition members. The group of 158 countries and 15 international organizations was established by the U.S. last year as part of the Biden Administration’s efforts to address the persistent and deadly fentanyl crisis that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year.
Also on the sidelines of the meetings, Biden is scheduled to meet with the Vietnamese president on Wednesday, which administration officials said will be an important opportunity to discuss the two countries’ shared interests in stability and prosperity in Southeast Asia, before continuing with talks with world leaders focused on Ukraine’s reconstruction, a key item on the agenda ahead of Biden’s planned meeting with Zelensky later this week.
In the past two weeks alone, Biden has been on a diplomatic spree, meeting with the British prime minister at the White House, hosting the Quad leaders of Australia, India and Japan in his hometown of Wilmington and welcoming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and United Arab Emirates leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as war rages in his own backyard.
These efforts are focused on the biggest threats today. As in recent years, the UN is once again under pressure from smaller countries to speak out and listen to their demands. Senior US officials say they plan to use the week to raise awareness of conflicts in Sudan and around the world.
“We are committed to peace and security, focusing not only on Gaza, Israel and Lebanon, but also Sudan, Ukraine, so all of these will be part of our agenda as well as conflicts in other parts of the world,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told CNN.
But questions about the effectiveness of the UN cannot be ignored this year, with the General Assembly meeting being held for the third time since Russia invaded Ukraine, no clear path forward for resolving the Gaza conflict, and rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah in the north. Russia and the US are both permanent members of the UN Security Council and wield veto power, making UN involvement in Ukraine and Gaza that much trickier.
“When you have a permanent member of the UN Security Council, or one of its member states, deeply involved, it’s a reminder that the UN system isn’t very good at resolving conflicts,” said Jon Alterman, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointing to the US-Israel relationship as a reason the UN cannot get as directly involved in conflicts as many member states would like.
“As the world gathers in New York to discuss the role of the United Nations, the role of international cooperation, I think the failure to use the UN’s machinery to effect greater change in a conflict that is so deeply felt for billions of people around the world will set a somber tone for the discussions this week,” Alterman continued, referring to the Gaza war.
U.S. officials continue to defend the U.S. use of the veto over the Gaza conflict, while acknowledging that Russia’s veto has influenced the expansion of U.S. involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
“My argument to countries is not to ask for what I think is dysfunctional, but to ask them to work within the system and think about how to change it,” Thomas-Greenfield told reporters last week when asked about criticism of the veto. “We’ve decided, along with other countries, that we’re not ready to give up our veto, but we’re ready to listen to what other countries have to say and we’ll see where that takes us.”
The United States has announced that it will not compromise on its veto power, but will support expanding the UN Security Council by adding two permanent African members and one rotating member from a small island developing state.
Heading into this year’s meetings, the Biden administration’s policy priorities include ending myriad global conflicts, revitalizing the U.N.-led humanitarian system and building a “more inclusive and effective” international system, Thomas-Greenfield said.
“The General Assembly’s three priorities are ambitious — some might say overly ambitious or even impossible — but we need ambition now. We need urgency. We need an opportunity to look at the impossible and think about how we can make it possible,” Thomas-Greenfield told reporters last week.
