President Joe Biden’s declaration to the Munich Security Conference last Friday that “America is back”—lest anyone miss it, he repeated the line three times—hasn’t gone down very well in the days since. While I suspect many in the Zoom audience were quietly relieved to hear it, public responses have ranged from skeptical to hostile. At the same conference, for example, French President Emmanuel Macron insisted that France stake out greater “strategic autonomy” from the United States. His German counterpart, Angela Merkel, reminded the audience that U.S. and German interests “will not always converge.” And back in the United States, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said: “I don’t think the American people can afford to go back to eight more years of Barack Obama’s foreign policy.”
While Pompeo’s sneering is easy to dismiss (why waste time worrying about the opinions of the worst secretary of state in U.S. history), the other comments deserve more attention. Yet they and the critiques of various pundits who have argued that the president’s pledge was both premature and hubristic also miss the key point. Biden surely didn’t mean to suggest that the United States has returned to the level of power, prestige, and importance it enjoyed in 2016. Or that it has recaptured its moral standing. He wasn’t arguing that he’d already repaired all the damage done by his predecessor; of course not. What Biden likely meant to convey—and what allies and adversaries should pay attention to—is the fact that Washington is trying again: trying to mend ties and restore cooperation with its friends. Trying to push back against authoritarian regimes and defend universal values. Trying to protect public goods like the environment. And, like it or not, trying to lead.
