French President Emmanuel Macron echoed calls from other world leaders imploring President-elect Joe Biden to increase the military presence of the United States on the world stage.
Macron shared his hope that the president-elect will send additional troops to the Middle East to help in the fight against terrorism.
“I am certain that in the coming weeks, the new [Biden] administration will need to make key decisions that will mark a greater commitment and awareness in the fight against terrorism [in Iraq and Syria],” he said Tuesday in remarks to the French military in the western city of Brest.
The current administration reached its targeted troop reduction figures in the region, drawing down forces to 2,500 in Afghanistan, President Trump said Friday.
“United States military troops in Afghanistan are at a 19-year low. Likewise, Iraq and Syria are also at the lowest point in many years,” Trump said in a statement celebrating the reduction. “I will always be committed to stopping the endless wars.”
Trump’s second-in-command, Mike Pence, echoed the president’s remarks in his farewell address as vice president, celebrating the administration’s refusal to engage in new wars during the four-year administration.
“I’m proud to report with just a few days left in our Administration, our Administration is the first in decades that did not get America into a new war,” Pence wrote Tuesday on Twitter. “That’s Peace through Strength.”
Other world leaders have called on Biden to increase cooperation with America’s allies when he is sworn in to office on Wednesday. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his desire that the U.S. becomes “reengaged” in international affairs.
“One of the things that a lot of the traditional allies and friends of the United States are looking forward to is a reengagement on some of the big themes, whether it’s freer trade, climate change, protecting democracy, or coordinating against some of the rise of authoritarianism we’re seeing around the world,” he said. “The rise of a much more assertive and sometimes problematic China, the shifts in poles of power around the world, the rise and strengthening of Asia as an economic focal point. These are things that are needing to be responded to.”
While Biden has repeatedly said he’d work with allies on matters of international import, the request to increase troop presence in the Middle East could fall on deaf ears. Biden’s campaign platform expressly states the president-elect’s agenda of continued troop reduction in the region.
“Biden will end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, which have cost us untold blood and treasure. As he has long argued, Biden will bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan and narrowly focus our mission on Al-Qaeda and ISIS,” reads a message on Biden’s website. “Staying entrenched in unwinnable conflicts only drains our capacity to lead on other issues that require our attention, and it prevents us from rebuilding the other instruments of American power.”
