In advance of Biden’s virtual appearances at a G-7 meeting and the Munich Security Conference, the White House sought to underscore that the new administration will move quickly to reorient the U.S. away from Donald Trump’s “America First” mantra by announcing a pair of major reversals of Trump administration policies.
The State Department announced Thursday that the U.S. stands ready to rejoin talks about reentering the 2015 multilateral Iran nuclear deal abandoned by the Trump administration.
And White House officials said Biden would announce at the G-7 that the U.S. will soon begin releasing $4 billion for an international effort to bolster the purchase and distribution of coronavirus vaccines to poor nations, a program that Trump refused to support. Both the G-7 and the annual security conference are being held virtually because of the pandemic.
Biden’s turn on the world stage comes as the U.S. on Friday officially rejoins the Paris climate agreement, the largest international effort to curb global warming. Trump announced in June 2017 that he was pulling the U.S. out of the landmark accord, arguing that it would undermine the American economy.
Biden announced the U.S. intention of rejoining the accord on the first day of his presidency but had to wait 30 days for the move to go into effect. He has said that he will weave considerations about climate change into every major domestic and foreign policy decision his administration faces.
