"So far no American ally has felt a need to react to the election debacles President Joe Biden suffered this week, notably in the state of Virginia, which his party controlled but then lost, and also in lesser votes elsewhere across the country.

Usually, there is no reason for, say, a German leader, to comment on a vote in a middle-sized American state. But in this case, cables sent out from foreign allies’ embassies in Washington will likely need to grapple with this question:

Is Biden already so wounded that, in just over three years, he’ll be replaced in 2024 elections and have his foreign policy initiatives overturned by a nationalistic populist in the image of Donald Trump or even by Trump himself?

His ratings in political surveys are as bad as Trump’s at their worst. Voters have begun to wonder if, with the spectacle of Biden’s occasional incoherent babbling, he is up to the job of the presidency.

Part of allied nations’ worry centers on the growing habit of US presidents to hang foreign initiatives on their own signature instead of gaining wider political consensus. In America’s volatile political landscape, this trend throws the staying power of US policy into doubt.

If a president believes he can’t get consent for a treaty from two-thirds of the US Senate, as constitutionally required, he forges ahead anyway and calls it something else."

https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/bidens-foreign-policy-undercut-by-domestic-weakness/

On Monday, November 8, 2021 at 1:00:50 PM UTC, ltlee1 wrote:
> "So far no American ally has felt a need to react to the election debacles President Joe Biden suffered this week, notably in the state of Virginia, which his party controlled but then lost, and also in lesser votes elsewhere across the country.
>
> Usually, there is no reason for, say, a German leader, to comment on a vote in a middle-sized American state. But in this case, cables sent out from foreign allies’ embassies in Washington will likely need to grapple with this question:
>
> Is Biden already so wounded that, in just over three years, he’ll be replaced in 2024 elections and have his foreign policy initiatives overturned by a nationalistic populist in the image of Donald Trump or even by Trump himself?
>
> His ratings in political surveys are as bad as Trump’s at their worst. Voters have begun to wonder if, with the spectacle of Biden’s occasional incoherent babbling, he is up to the job of the presidency.
>
> Part of allied nations’ worry centers on the growing habit of US presidents to hang foreign initiatives on their own signature instead of gaining wider political consensus. In America’s volatile political landscape, this trend throws the staying power of US policy into doubt.
>
> If a president believes he can’t get consent for a treaty from two-thirds of the US Senate, as constitutionally required, he forges ahead anyway and calls it something else."
>
> https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/bidens-foreign-policy-undercut-by-domestic-weakness/

Biden is caught between between a rock and a hard place. China is the rock. The Biden
administration still needs China's cooperation. Domestic weakness is the hard place.
The Biden administration has to convince the opposition that it is forceful on China.