WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden isn’t expected to make foreign policy a major focus of his State of the Union speech on Thursday night despite multiple wars and conflicts around the world that are increasingly beyond his administration’s ability to manage and contain, not least because of the views of his congressional audience.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers who spoke to CQ Roll Call as well as former congressional and executive branch staffers all said they understood why Biden would focus his annual speech on Americans’ domestic concerns such as inflation, the cost of essential goods and services and migration, especially in an election year.
But Biden will also face an audience that lately has shown little willingness to follow his lead on major foreign policy problems. House Republicans so far opted not to provide more military and economic aid that could help Ukraine push Russia out of its territory. And many Democrats say Biden isn’t doing enough to rein in Israel as it continues its attacks on the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Although the Democrats have so far mostly backed aid to Israel, they are unhappy with the heavy cost in civilian Palestinian lives.
The worry that Chinese President Xi Jinping might try to compel Taiwan into acceding to Chinese government rule raises the foreign policy stakes further, making this year’s State of the Union an ideal moment for a president to emphasize how U.S. national security is jeopardized by events overseas and a misstep now could increase the chance that U.S. troops may need to be deployed in the not-too-distant future.
“We are in the middle of a cycle of generational challenges at the same time we have fundamental challenges to our leadership in Europe, in the Middle East and in Asia,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who leads the Senate Appropriations subcommittee with responsibility for foreign aid and whose foreign policy views are…
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