Biden Flops in Switzerland, Gives Putin Another Victory

Yesterday in Switzerland, Joe Biden handed Vladamir Putin yet another geopolitical victory. After months of tough talk and little action, Biden under-delivered, securing no meaningful concessions from the Kremlin and elevating Putin’s standing on the world stage.

The New York Times: “The clear problem here is that Russia is coming away with a public relations win while the U.S. has little to show from the summit in terms of tangible improvements to national security. Mr. Putin has once again been elevated to the world stage in a face-off against the world’s pre-eminent superpower in a well-rehearsed and tiresome script that burnishes his credentials as a world leader.”

The strategic missteps at the summit follow Biden’s failure to react to Russian aggression. Biden had called Putin a “killer” and promised that the United States would “respond in kind” to Russian cyberattacks. But instead of reining in the increasingly brazen aggression, Biden allowed the Russians to complete the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and did nothing to secure the safety of Putin’s domestic political opponents. 

Bottom Line: The Biden-Harris administration followed up Kamala Harris’ disastrous trip abroad with another diplomatic failure. The United States should be leading the free world by standing up to dictators and authoritarians, not giving them custom aviator sunglasses.