Biden warns against isolationism in veiled attack on Trump

Vice President Biden took several veiled shots at Donald Trump on Monday, warning in a Foreign Affairs article that isolationism would diminish the United States’s standing in the world. 

Though Biden did not address the Republican presidential nominee by name, he denounced policies that could inflame U.S. tensions with the Muslim world and force a standoff with China, as critics allege Trump’s policies would do.

{mosads}“Even in simpler times, isolationism never offered more than a false sense of security. And now, more than ever, we cannot wall ourselves off from these dangers or sit back and wait for others to solve the world’s problems for us,” Biden wrote, offering an oblique reference to Trump’s plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“There is simply too much at stake for the United States to draw back from our responsibilities now,” he added.

“The choices we make today will steer the future of our planet. In the face of enormous challenges and unprecedented opportunities, the world needs steady American leadership more than ever.”

Biden in his article highlighted four priorities for the next American president, whom he said will inherit a country that is “stronger and more secure today” than when he and President Obama entered office at the beginning of 2009.

Among those, he wrote, were promoting the U.S.’s role in the Pacific; managing relationships with regional powerhouses such as China; overseeing global responses to scourges including health pandemics and climate change; and defeating extremists such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

International cooperation is a necessary component to accomplish all those goals, Biden wrote.

And stoking the ire of Muslims around the world, he claimed, would play into extremists’ narrative about a clash of civilizations.

“We should never let these groups win by giving in to the religious war they want.”

The Foreign Affairs article is the latest part of a sustained effort by the Obama administration to paint Trump as unfit for office. The argument, which echoes concerns of many Republican national security experts, has taken on a variety of forms in recent weeks and months, from denouncing Trump’s skepticism of institutions such as NATO to claiming he’s too unsteady to manage the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal.