Over the past five years, Beijing has adopted a much more assertive military and diplomatic approach in Southeast Asia. While one could reasonably expect this to negatively affect China’s standing in the region, the opposite is the case. China’s influence in Southeast Asia has soared, largely at the expense of the United States.
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Is Washington’s post-Cold War “unipolar moment” over? Some claim that multipolarity has been with us for some time. Others are not so sure, pointing to the United States’ continued economic and military dominance. But even if the U.S. remains the world’s predominant power, it may still well exist in a multipolar world.
As U.S. officials focus on countering China and Russia, Washington’s policy community is taking a new look at U.S. relations with the Global South. The fact that these conversations are taking place is encouraging, but the questions they focus on also demonstrate how little U.S. leaders understand about the Global South.
In March, the U.S. announced its largest-ever commitment of funding to support foreign labor unions and the right to organize around the world. But while the initiative was framed as novel, the U.S. government has leaned on domestic labor unions as a means of achieving its national security goals since the late 1940s.
New tensions in South Africa’s relationship with the U.S. emerged last week when Washington’s ambassador to Pretoria accused the country of providing arms to Russia despite Pretoria’s stated nonalignment in the war in Ukraine. The dispute could have implications for Washington’s “reset” of its relations with African countries.
The lapsing of Title 42, a pandemic-era border control measure, offers an opportunity to reconsider U.S. immigration policy more broadly. Rather than pointing to the need for tighter restrictions, it highlights why the U.S. should adopt an “open door” immigration policy, making it easy for anyone who wishes to enter the U.S. to do so.
Late last week, China and the U.S. engaged in their first high-level, face-to-face discussions since the spy balloon fiasco, suggesting they have started to put the incident behind them. If they manage to sustain the latest thaw, the world will be better off, as more contact is crucial for managing a range of bilateral and global issues.
Last month, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan gave a speech declaring that the neoliberal “Washington consensus” was officially dead. The Biden administration’s new policy approach is a bold departure from one that allowed far too many decisions to be determined solely by the market, but it has problems of its own.
The Biden administration’s policy approach to the Middle East has come under recent criticism, and its Indo-Pacific policy and its role in Africa are up for debate. But a key region seems to be flying under the radar: Latin America. What is U.S. policy toward its own neighborhood? Does the U.S. even have a policy toward the region?
Despite minimal payoff from U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to the Middle East last summer, Washington has nonetheless scored some diplomatic wins over the past year. But the gains Washington has made have now run into significant yet predictable headwinds, highlighting the difficulties facing Biden’s regional agenda.
The U.S. military commitment to the Middle East has long been a core principle of U.S. foreign policy, stemming from the conviction that it keeps the region from falling into chaos and that a retreat would embolden enemies there and around the world. But the world is changing, and so should U.S. policy toward the Middle East.
The Western Hemisphere is experiencing increased migration, driven by repression, persecution, crime, conflict, poverty and the climate emergency. But thousands of migrants are caught between Washington’s continued closure of the southern border to most asylum-seekers and the dangers they face on the Mexican side of the border.