Biden vs Trump on Foreign Policy – Medea Benjamin

    Code Pink's co-founder Medea Benjamin, one of the most relentless activists in the anti-war movement, looks at U.S. foreign policy and assesses the candidates for President of the United States. With Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast. Transcript Paul Jay Hi, I'm Paul Jay, and this is theAn Code Pink's co-founder Medea Benjamin, one of the most relentless activists in the anti-war movement, looks at U.S. foreign policy and assesses the candidates for President of the United States. With Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast. Transcript Paul Jay Hi, I'm Paul Jay, and this is theAnalysis.news podcast. Don't forget: there's a donate button at the top of the webpage. There's been a lot of debate on whether a Biden administration's foreign policy will be all that much different or all that much better than Trump's. Well, Biden's foreign policy is dressed up in talk of a renewed multilateralism and American “leadership.” His thinking is rooted in the Cold War and the need for maintaining America as the global policeman and hegemon. But will Biden at least be less reckless than Trump? How does Trump's record stack up against Biden's? Now joining us to discuss this is Medea Benjamin. She's the co-founder of the women-led peace group Code Pink and the co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange. She's the author of ten books, including Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control and Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US-Saudi Connection. Her most recent book is Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Medea and her colleagues, in my estimation, have been maybe the most tireless anti-war organizers and campaigners in the United States for years, no matter which party was in power. Thanks for joining us, Medea. Medea Benjamin Hey, nice to be with you, Paul. Paul Jay Why don't you give me just an overall impression of how you compare a Biden to a Trump foreign policy, and then we'll kind of dig into some of the bigger issues? Medea Benjamin Well, you brought up the term, “reckless,” and I think that's an important one, which is, Trump did a lot of jumping around and going-by-the-gut kind of thing. Some thought that he was really going to make peace with North Korea and he then backed down. There’re all kinds of pressures on him to not move forward. But he didn't follow through on that. Talked about getting us out of these wars. But we're still in them. And he is so abrasive that it was hard to know where he was going with certain things. And certainly, when it comes to being part of the international community of nations, pulling us out of everything from the Paris Accord to the WHO to the UNESCO Human Rights Council, all of that, I mean, that will change when you get to Biden. But he touts that he didn't start us in a new war. I wouldn't really say that, because if you look at things like the terrible, brutal sanctions on countries like Iran and Venezuela, that's pretty much economic warfare. So, I don't feel like Trump in any way was a "peace president," as he likes to put himself forward to be. And as you said, Biden is old school. He's wouldn't be all that different from Obama, which really wasn't all that different from Bush, which wasn't all that different from Trump. So, there is a continuity of the US as a warlike country that uses militarism way more than diplomacy. You know, the biggest difference, Paul,