President Biden to give final UN address on range of global topics

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will deliver his final speech to the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday in Manhattan, marking one of his last appearances on an international stage as world leaders shift their focus to November’s presidential election and its impact on U.S. foreign relations.

Biden is expected to address the Israel-Hamas war, rising tensions in the Middle East and Ukraine’s ongoing war against Russia, according to the White House, in a speech that will draw from his decades of shaping U.S. foreign policy, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as vice president and ultimately as commander in chief.

White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters last week that Biden will use his speech to "reaffirm America’s leadership on the world stage." Kirby said Biden would touch on climate, the opioid epidemic, resources for developing countries, the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence and the wars in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan.

Biden, 81, will enter the United Nations’ storied headquarters at a time of uncertainty for U.S. foreign policy. Former President Donald Trump has promised that if he wins he will return to his "America First" brand of foreign isolationism, while Vice President Kamala Harris has said the U.S. should preserve and build upon its long standing foreign alliances.

Former State Department policy adviser Jon Alterman, speaking at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event previewing the U.N. summit, said there is a "sense of profound anxiety" among foreign diplomats "about the shape of the U.S. election."

"I think the perception that President Trump is unpredictable has the effect of freezing adversaries who are uncertain of Trump’s actions, but it also freezes allies who have become uncertain of U.S. support," said Alterman, who early in his career served as a foreign policy and defense policy adviser to the late Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.)

Biden, who is scheduled to host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Thursday, continues to press for U.S. and NATO support of Ukraine against Russia. Trump has said the U.S. should broker a deal to end the war, a move that foreign policy experts have said would likely mean Ukraine ceding Russian-occupied territory.

Zelenskyy will reportedly meet with Biden and Harris to present his strategy for ending the war. Trump told campaign reporters this week he will "probably" meet with Zelenskyy at the foreign leader’s request.

Both Harris and Trump continue to field requests to speak with foreign dignitaries ahead of the Nov. 5 election. Harris met Monday with the president of the United Arab Emirates, and Trump’s campaign said he is expected to speak with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this week.

Alterman said the absence of both Harris and Trump from New York during the general assembly, and Biden’s status as a lame-duck president, has made this year’s gathering become "almost prematurely like a sideshow." 

"It’s not the main event, because the people who are going to decide the future of the way the U.S. engages in the world don’t think being at the U.N., engaging with the U.N., will help them — and it certainly won’t help them get elected by the American public," Alterman said.

Meena Bose, director of the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American presidency, at Hofstra University, said Biden’s speech "will be a capstone opportunity for highlighting his administration’s global accomplishments and addressing challenges for the United States in the world."