Americans should be Biden’s priority. Courtesy |Flickr

It is commendable for world leaders to visit a war zone. Winston Churchill walked the streets of London during the Blitz. Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address mere months after one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. 

These visits have something in common: the world leaders’ countries were at war with those responsible for the destruction.

President Joe Biden visited Ukraine on Feb. 20. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the United States has committed $24.9 billion in military equipment, money, and training to Ukraine so far.

Biden has refused to visit the community of East Palestine, Ohio, which has been ravaged from the emission of dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere. Biden visited the U.S.-Mexico border over two years after becoming president, and even then, he visited a sanitized version of the border, rather than a struggling community ravaged by drug cartels. Three of the five paragraphs in Biden’s press statement about the tragic Michigan State University shooting on Feb. 13 express his own political agenda, rather than console the grieving families and communities involved.

Biden is no Lincoln speaking while surrounded by the graves of his men. He is not Churchill, walking in the ravaged streets of London, or Reagan, imploring the international community to seek peace and unity. 

Biden chose to ignore the struggles of his own citizens, in favor of the adoration of the international community and thunderous applause. Every politician wants approval. But every politician must face the problems that his citizens suffer from. He cannot ignore his country in favor of stirring the pot with other nations. 

America is not at war with Russia. American soldiers are not fighting under the American flag in Ukraine. Americans are not actively threatened by Russia.

And yet, Biden just visited Ukraine. 

The floodgates are open. Biden’s diplomatic trip to Warsaw, Poland, took a detour. 

Biden met once again with  Zelensky, and gave a speech about the meeting the following day, back in Warsaw. According to the Department of Defense, Biden said “Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia.”

Those words are the words of someone who is engaging in war.
“The United States and the nations of Europe do not seek to control or destroy Russia,” Biden said. 

But how is the Russian government meant to see American support for Ukraine as peaceful and not antagonistic? Biden referred to Putin as having “craven lust for land and power,” according to the White House. How does that diction promote something other than the desire of the West to control Russia, or at least President Vladimir Putin?

Biden’s visit to Ukraine and subsequent speech in Warsaw was not Ronald Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” speech to Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. 

His visit did not increase support for “democracy,” which Biden touts throughout his speech. Biden did not de-escalate the situation between Ukraine and Russia. He did not advocate for a new era of peace. 

The speech was political, inherently so. While addressing Poland, Biden spoke of the courage of the Ukrainian soldiers. But Biden appears to have forgotten that he is the president of the United States of America, not Ukraine. He is not meant to be Zelensky’s cheerleader on the international stage, giving billions of American dollars to a cause that Americans are not threatened by. Biden claims that “President Putin chose this war. Every day the war continues is his choice.”

Indeed, Putin is the one who invaded Ukraine. But Biden is not in charge of whether the war continues, no matter how much he wishes to finance it at the expense of the American people. 

While being extolled for his courage in visiting Ukraine and touted for his support of a conflict that is far removed both geographically and militarily from Americans, Biden ignored his own people.

Biden should assume a spot in the trenches. There is value in interacting with the international community, but the American president should remember the people that elected him into office. His role is to advocate for the American people, and American needs, above all else. He cannot hide behind the veil of international applause to avoid the disapproval of his own country.