(Washington) The time is far from a Joe Biden parading in February 2023 in the streets of Kyiv, standard bearer of Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Almost a year later, the American president appears, on the contrary, under pressure in the face of a war that is getting bogged down, with no end in sight, and a conflict in the Gaza Strip that threatens at any moment to set the Middle East ablaze. with unpredictable consequences.
The war between Israel and Hamas has already boiled over with attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels close to Iran against maritime traffic in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and those by pro-Iranian groups targeting American troops in Iraq and in Syria, in both cases prompting strikes from the United States.
America is certainly not at war, but this multiplication of areas of tension, including on the border with Mexico, poses a challenge to the 81-year-old Democratic president in the midst of his campaign for his own re-election in November.
Especially since his probable opponent in the race for the White House, former Republican President Donald Trump, is taking the opportunity to accuse Joe Biden of weakness.
” Achilles’ heel ”
For Melissa DeRosa, a Democratic consultant, “the feeling of instability caused by these conflicts, not to mention the problem at the border, will play a role in this election.”
“I think this will be a problem for Joe Biden,” she emphasizes. Especially since Donald Trump will not hesitate to “highlight this”, especially regarding the migration crisis, his real “Achilles heel” according to her.
Traditionally, foreign policy only plays a small role in electoral campaigns in the United States and, barring a major event, the 2024 election should not fundamentally deviate from the rule.
PHOTO MIKE SEGAR, REUTERS
Former US President Donald Trump
But former President Trump, on his way to winning the Republican Party nomination, intends to play on this instability and the influx of migrants at the Mexican border to better highlight the contrast with Joe Biden, an argument that hits the mark among his supporters.
“Foreign entities respect him more and fear him more than the current occupant of the White House,” says one of these supporters, Tony Ferrantello, a 72-year-old retired architect we met in Keene, New York. Hampshire, ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
When it comes to foreign policy, President Biden’s approval rating is not in good shape: 58.8% of Americans say they disapprove while 36% think the opposite, according to an average of polls from the RealClearPolitics site carried out between mid -December and mid-January.
Not the least of the paradoxes for a president who presents himself with decades of experience – as vice-president under Barack Obama or having been a long-time member of the powerful Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, which he even chaired.
Even more so for a president who said during his election in 2020 that America was “back” after the Trump years and who prides himself on having restored the alliances of the United States, from NATO to Asia- Peaceful.
Support for Israel
But the war in Ukraine weighs heavily, Joe Biden having taken the head of a vast international coalition in favor of this country after the Russian invasion in February 2022, without however taking the risk of a direct confrontation with Moscow.
He is grappling in the United States with a relative weariness of continuing to take out the checkbook to finance Ukrainian defense without tangible results.
And the Republican opposition in Congress is trading its support in exchange for getting tougher on immigration at the southern border.
Joe Biden’s firm support for Israel in its war against Hamas, triggered by the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7, is also causing tensions within the progressive electorate this time.
This is evidenced by the incident on Tuesday, when pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupted the Democrat several times in the middle of a speech on the right to abortion, one of the themes he intends to carry during his campaign.
This support could hurt him in November in key states like Michigan, where there is a large Arab-Muslim community. Or even with the key youth electorate.
And that’s without counting the opening of another possible front: North Korea, at a time when tensions between Seoul and Pyongyang have greatly worsened.
North Korea “tends to increase provocations during election years in the United States,” note Victor Cha and Andy Lim, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.