On Thursday afternoon (Feb. 4), new U.S. President Joe Biden delivered his first foreign policy address at the State Department. During the speech, he spoke about the U.S. ending its support for its allies’ military operations in Yemen. Last month, Trump (R-Texas) declared the Houthi rebels (Houthi), who are fighting against the Yemeni government, a terrorist group.
Biden said the U.S. secretary of defense will work with the secretary of state to revisit U.S. military strategic deployments around the world, will suspend plans to redeploy the military in Germany and will take steps to end as soon as possible the long-running military conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen, which has caused a serious humanitarian crisis.
“The war in Yemen must come to an end.” Biden said in his first major foreign policy speech.
The war between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels (Houthi) began in 2014. The fighting escalated a year later when Saudi Arabia and eight other Arab countries, backed by the United States, Britain and France, began air strikes against the Houthi rebels. More than 110,000 people are believed to have died in Yemen’s six-year war that has lasted.
Biden’s remarks Thursday mean the U.S. will stop continuing military support to allies, including the sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Previously, the Biden Administration had temporarily halted arms sales to the two countries.
In his speech, Biden revealed that Secretary of State Blinken will appoint Tim Lenderking, an experienced diplomat and Middle East expert, as the new special envoy to Yemen.
This comes after the Trump Administration once increased support for the Saudi-led coalition. Last month, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the Houthi rebels had been designated a “terrorist organization. The move was aimed at holding the Houthi rebels accountable for their cross-border attacks and stopping the “malicious activities” of Iran, which provides support to them.
In his speech on Thursday, Biden said that China (the Chinese Communist Party) is the United States’ “most serious competitor (opponent)” and that the U.S. will push back against the Chinese Communist Party on intellectual property and human rights, while not ruling out cooperation with Beijing if it is in the U.S. interest to do so.
On Russia, the new U.S. president said, “I made this clear to President (Vladimir) Putin: In stark contrast to my predecessors, the days of U.S. compromise on Russian aggression are over.”
The remarks prompted a sharp response from the Kremlin. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday, “This is very aggressive, unconstructive rhetoric, and we regret it.”
Biden has been accused of quickly shifting his predecessor Trump’s policies to the left after taking office. In a speech Thursday, Biden said he would stop withdrawing U.S. troops in Germany and keep the number of troops there at the current level of about 36,000. This follows Trump’s plan to reduce U.S. troops in Germany by 12,000. Of those, about 5,600 will be deployed elsewhere in Europe.
Earlier, Biden also reversed the Trump administration’s policy of limiting illegal immigration and raised the cap on refugee admissions from 15,000 to 125,000 for the current fiscal year.
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