In an act of profound patriotism, US President Joe Biden has announced his decision to withdraw his candidacy from the 2024 election and to embrace his legacy as a one-term president.
The question of Biden’s future has been widely discussed since June’s presidential debate, an event that changed the course of history. The decision has been widely anticipated and a source of great division in the Democratic Party. His announcement today is a moment of great promise, sadness for many, and uncertainty for all.
Already, it has unleashed energy and ambition in an election that for months had felt like a replay of 2020 and seen disturbingly low levels of enthusiasm among a worn-down electorate.
Extraordinary experience
Biden’s legacy is considerable. A public servant with unparalleled experience, he served as a US senator for Delaware from 1973-2009, and vice president from 2009-2017. He will likely be America’s last president with deep experience of the Cold War.
He played a central role in reimagining the international order, and America’s unipolar power, in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse.
And, as vice president and president, he has helped negotiate America’s changed role in a fractured world, during eighteen years in which democracy has declined, China has risen, and emerging powers have exercised remarkable independence. In the same period, the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash reshaped politics at home, paving the way for the rise of his defining opponent, Donald Trump.
Initially, Biden had planned to be a one-term president. He inherited a country struggling to cope with a once in a century pandemic, that had seen intense societal and political polarization.
As president, Biden introduced transformative legislation bringing climate investments on a level never seen in the US. He restored growth and oversaw a transition to an economy fuelled by innovation that made the US the envy of many of its allies and partners.
Biden also sought to restore US leadership, after four years during which former President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw the US from its multilateral commitments and to upend the civility that was foundational to many US alliances. Biden also recommitted the US to the Paris Agreement on climate change, ensured his country remained in the WHO, and worked diligently to reassure US allies.
The low point of his foreign policy was the botched, disastrous exit from Afghanistan. Images of desperate Afghans clinging to the side of US aircraft rapidly exiting the country were a humiliating end to the twenty-year US mission there.
The high point was his bold and risky effort to release intelligence telegraphing Vladimir Putin’s planned invasion of Ukraine. Biden worked assiduously to build support across NATO to shore up Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself in the early weeks of the war.
His legacy will also be of a president who restored a floor in the US–China relationship, while building a latticework of coalitions in the Indo-Pacific invested with liberal values of openness and stability.
Biden announced the AUKUS trilateral security and defence partnership, and invested in the Quad, a grouping designed to give countries in Asia an alternative to China. Trilateral cooperation with Japan and South Korea was another significant achievement.
But disappointment over the US’s failure to make a more serious economic investment in the region has continued to be a limiting factor on US engagement in the Indo-Pacific.
An act of leadership
For the past three weeks, many had feared that Biden’s legacy would be marred by his decision to stay in the race. Choosing not to stand is a sign of extraordinary leadership in what is sure to be an election of profound consequence for the future of democracy in America, and US leadership in the world.
Ultimately, though, his legacy will also rest on the outcome of the 2024 election. If Democrats succeed in defeating Donald Trump, Biden will be seen as the president that defeated Donald Trump not once, but twice.
If Democrats lose, or if there is a contested, even violent, election, Biden’s legacy will look very different. The president could be blamed for delaying a crucial decision that left his party with too short a runway to consolidate around a candidate capable of winning.
Even worse for Biden’s legacy, a return of Donald Trump would surely lead to the unravelling of many of his most important policies: to slow climate change and invest in industries of the future, to invest in building new coalitions and deepening existing alliances. Most importantly, the effort to restore a form of civility to politics, at home and abroad, could prove wasted.
Europe
For Europe, President Biden’s decision also signifies the end of an era. He is sure to be the last truly atlanticist president – that is one who believes in the necessity of US leadership for upholding international order and liberal values.
Biden has used his leadership to attempt to transform American power, from one that is ever present to one that is more disciplined.
For this reason, his legacy will be contested by those who wished to see greater certainty and commitment, especially to Ukraine – and those who wished to see far more restraint and clearer priorities in a world of scarcity.