U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (L) and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (R) look on as President Joe Biden speaks concerning the authorities response and restoration efforts in Maui, Hawaii, and the continuing response on Hurricane Idalia, within the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., Aug. 30, 2023.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
President Joe Biden will deal with the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, the place he plans to promote democracy and advocate for elevated assist for Ukraine.
For Biden, it is one other alternative to advance the concepts of diplomacy and democracy in opposition to these of aggressive autocracies, as he did on the current Group of 20 Summit earlier this month.
“[Biden] will lay out for the world the steps that he and his administration have taken to advance a imaginative and prescient of American management that’s constructed on the premise of working with others to clear up the world’s most urgent issues,” White House nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan stated in a briefing Friday.
Biden’s conferences, speech
Leaders from no less than 145 nations are slated to attend with just a few notable exceptions: France, the United Kingdom, China and Russia will all be absent, which means 4 of the 5 nations that maintain everlasting seats on the U.N. Security Council is not going to be in attendance.
The absence of China and Russia offers Biden a gap to advance ties between the United States and smaller, growing nations that attend the U.N. however aren’t invited to different worldwide features.
Biden is slated to meet Wednesday with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, a key chief within the Global South who has additionally been a proponent of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Lula has argued the U.S. and different Western nations are prolonging the battle with their protection assist.
The president may even meet with the leaders of the 5 central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, marking the primary time a U.S. president has performed so collectively. He may even meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the primary time the pair have met for the reason that prime minister gained re-election final fall.
This would be the first time Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has attended the U.N. summit in particular person for the reason that battle started. He gave a prerecorded speech to the physique ultimately 12 months’s session.
“President Biden appears ahead to listening to President Zelenskyy’s perspective on all of this and to reaffirm for the world and for the United States, for the American folks, his dedication to persevering with to lead the world in supporting Ukraine,” Sullivan stated.
A “substantial part” of Biden’s speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday can be devoted to the battle in Ukraine, Sullivan stated.
“He will speak concerning the basic proven fact that the United Nations Charter … speaks to the fundamental proposition that nations can’t assault their neighbors and steal their territory by power,” Sullivan stated, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “That was additionally a proposition that was on the core of the G-20 assertion final weekend.”
U.S. assist for Ukraine
Biden’s message of assist for Ukraine is difficult by the truth that a handful of hard-line Republicans in Congress are actively opposing extra funding.
The White House is searching for $24 billion in further assist to Ukraine which it hoped can be handed alongside a continuing resolution to maintain the federal government open whereas budget negotiations proceed. The measure has bipartisan assist within the Senate however is held up within the House of Representatives, the place some members, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., have stated they won’t assist any further assist.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is in a precarious place on the problem of Ukraine as his slim majority locations him on the whims of each member of his caucus. Conservatives balked at McCarthy’s proposal final week to pair Ukraine assist with further border funding.
Zelenskyy will journey to Washington, D.C., on Thursday to meet with Biden on the White House and converse with lawmakers. Unlike his visit in December, Zelenskyy is not going to deal with a joint session of Congress. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, stated Zelenskyy can be “very, very persuasive.”
“Zelenskyy is a superb spokesperson,” Turner stated on CBS News on Sunday. “He actually makes the case higher than anybody.”
It’s a place the White House agrees with.
“He has confirmed over the course of the previous 18, 19 months, that there isn’t any higher advocate for his nation, for his folks, and for the pressing and persevering with want for nations just like the United States and our allies and companions to step up to present the required instruments and assets that Ukraine wants,” Sullivan stated.