Joe Biden wanted to show Americans that there was a better path than Trumpism. He worked to build a “foreign policy for the middle class.” He centered industrial policy. He took a more competitive tack with China. He kept America out of wars. The hope was that if Americans saw foreign policy serving their interests, then that would dim the appeal of someone like Donald Trump.Then Trump won again — stronger than ever.Jake Sullivan is Biden’s national security adviser and one of the key architects of this foreign policy for the middle class. In this conversation, I ask him to walk me through why he thinks the country is better off today than it was four years ago. We discuss the status of America’s relationship with China and the risk of a future war; whether the U.S. should have used its leverage to force Ukraine to the negotiating table; how the enormous arms support of Israel serves U.S. interests; what Trump’s re-election says about Bidenism; and more.Mentioned:Brookings speechBook Recommendations:Science, the Endless Frontier by Vannevar BushNexus by Yuval Noah HarariThe Situation Room by George StephanopoulosThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected] can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Efim Shapiro and Aman Sahota. Our supervising editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Chapter 1: What does Bidenism mean in the context of Trumpism?
From New York Times Opinion, this is The Ezra Klein Show. As the second Trump era dawns and the Biden era dims, it's worth asking, what was Bidenism? I think one answer to that begins in 2016, when Donald Trump wins his first presidential election. That win was a rupture for many Democrats. To them, Trump didn't win so much as they lost.
How disillusioned did voters need to be with Democratic governance to consider someone like Donald Trump? Jake Sullivan was Hillary Clinton's senior policy advisor in the 2016 campaign. That loss was a rupture for him.
And he was one of the Democrats who, after that campaign, embarked on a very public rethinking, a very public effort to get the Democratic Party to admit it was doing something wrong. It had to change. One of Sullivan's main conclusions was a democratic foreign policy become severed from domestic politics in a way that had left both vulnerable.
For too long, Democrats had understood their domestic policies as serving the middle class and their foreign policies as being part of a free trade-centric liberal world order that America led. But the task now was to build a foreign policy that the American middle class saw serving their interests, because if you didn't, they would turn to strongmen like Donald Trump.
You had to win democracy here at home before you could ever protect it abroad. After that, Sullivan became a senior policy advisor to Joe Biden in the 2020 campaign. And you could hear Sullivan's thinking echoing in the way Joe Biden pitched his candidacy.
Ladies and gentlemen, political wisdom holds that Americans, the American public, doesn't vote on foreign policy. But I think that's an old way of thinking. In 2019, foreign policy is domestic policy, in my view, and domestic policy is foreign policy.
Biden introduced a slogan that made their project explicit.
I will equip our people to succeed in the new global economy with a foreign policy for the middle class.
Biden won that election, and Jake Sullivan was named National Security Advisor. And from that perch, he was one of the key architects of what I think Bidenism will be understood to have been. A recentering of industrial policy at the center of national strategy. A much more competitive approach to China. A belief that Americans had to see that you were putting their interests first.
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Chapter 2: How did the 2016 election impact Democratic foreign policy?
And then there are other areas where I think President Trump talked the right game but didn't deliver. The fundamental investments in America's industrial and innovation base that President Biden has done over the last four years were things that President Trump suggested he would do but never did, whether it's chips or clean energy or infrastructure.
And those have put the United States in such a profound position of confidence and capacity in the competition with China, all the while also engaging in intense diplomacy so that the bottom doesn't drop out and we veer into conflict with China. We've managed the relationship stably. while also competing, in my view, quite effectively.
Ezra, when we walked in the door, the conventional wisdom was two things. First, that China would surpass the United States economically within the next several years. And second, that China, not the United States, was going to lead the world in artificial intelligence. Because of what President Biden has done, nobody's talking about China surpassing the United States anytime soon and perhaps ever.
And second, the United States is the leading power when it comes to artificial intelligence, not China. And we intend to keep it that way. So I'm worried about that bottom dropping out.
I understand the arguments for more competition with China. I understand the anger over the China shock and that freer trade didn't lead to a more liberal China. But I would say I have been surprised by the real rise in signaling over the past few years that we would go to war over Taiwan. President Biden made comments that were explicit about that in a way that was a break with previous policy.
You didn't want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?
Yes.
You are?
That's a commitment we made. The administration sort of walked those back, but Nancy Pelosi herself went to Taiwan.
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