We’re now two weeks away from the first general election presidential debate, and we’re also just days removed from the guilty verdicts against Donald Trump and Hunter Biden. But if there’s been a set of issues that have dominated President Joe Biden’s time and schedule during this crucial stretch, it’s been foreign affairs and international relations. Last week, Biden traveled to France for a state visit and the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. And while part of that trip had a fixed eye on America’s domestic audience — especially Biden’s speech on democracy and freedom — so much else was focused on foreign affairs. Covering that trip for NBC News, what struck me most — of course, after what may be the last formal gathering of D-Day veterans — were the public discussions about who will be guiding the U.S. less than a year from now. Even along the hallowed ground at Normandy American Cemetery, some of those in attendance for Biden’s speech — in which he denounced isolationism — were donning red MAGA hats. Behind all the powerful imagery of that place and the stories of a unified Western alliance in World War II was the stark reality that Americans, 80 years later, are deeply divided. Then this week — just days after his son’s conviction — Biden flew to Italy for the G7 meeting of leading Western nations and Japan. At the top of Biden’s agenda there was a 10-year U.S. security agreement with Ukraine, as well as a $50 billion loan to Ukraine in its war against Russia. “Again and again and again, we’re going to stand with Ukraine,” Biden said Thursday in Italy. Yet underscoring the policy stakes of the 2024 election, the future of that U.S.-Ukraine security agreement could depend on the winner in November, given Trump’s past rhetoric on Russia and Ukraine. In election years, these international trips can bolster a commander-in-chief’s image back at home — and allow him to plant America’s flag abroad (as both Ronald Reagan and Biden did in D-Day speeches that were 40 years apart). But with polls showing the economy, inflation, immigration and democracy ranking as American voters’ top concerns for the upcoming election, it’s quite likely that these were Biden’s final trips abroad before the election — especially as the 2024 campaign truly heats up with the first debate this month. |