Deeply damaging

Biden blasts Trump's 'deeply damaging' foreign policy

By Louis Nelson

From a border wall with Mexico to a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. to a warmer embrace of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, Vice President Joe Biden sees Donald Trump’s foreign policy as problematic at best and damaging at worst.

The vice president will say as much Monday afternoon in a speech to the Center for New American Security’s Annual Conference in downtown Washington, excerpts of which were released Monday morning. Biden will draw a contrast between the progress he says he and President Barack Obama have made over the last seven years and Trump’s proposals, which the vice president will paint as backwards-facing.

“But if we turn inward, undermine our most important relationships, or seek sound bite solutions in a world defined by complexity,” Biden will say. “If we forget who we are, betray our values, and embrace intolerance. We will squander all of our hard-earned progress.”

In his prepared remarks, Biden says building a border wall would “disrespect our neighbors” and heighten anti-American feelings in the Western hemisphere. On China, a nation with which Trump said the U.S. makes bad deals, Biden will say cooperation is essential and to resort to confrontation would make life harder for billions of people.

Biden has especially harsh words for Trump’s terrorism policy proposals and his plan to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States. He plans to call the presumptive Republican nominee’s vow to resume the practice of waterboarding “deeply damaging to our security” and mirrored Obama’s refrain that the U.S. must be careful not to disaffect the world’s Muslims while combating extremism.

“Alienating 1.5 billion Muslims, the vast, vast majority of whom, at home and abroad, are peace-loving, will only make the problem worse. It plays into the narrative of extremists,” Biden will say. “We shouldn’t give them what they want. We are so much better than that."