Antony Blinken: Biden administration would "actually show up again" on diplomacy

Former Deputy National Security Advisor Antony Blinken said Thursday that a Joe Biden administration would reassert American leadership through diplomacy.

Why it matters: Blinken warned that the U.S. faces multiple rising powers and new actors on the world stage that are "super-empowered by technology and information," adding that America must figure out how to bring them along "if we're going to make progress."

What they're saying: "I think you'd see the Biden administration acting on the one hand with some humility, because most of the world's problems are not about us, even though they affect us," Blinken said at an Axios digital event. "We can't just flip a switch and solve them. But also, with confidence, because America, at its best, still has a greater capacity than any country on earth to mobilize others in positive, collective action."

• "When we're not engaged, when we're not leading, then one of two things: Either some other country is and tries to take our place, but probably not in a way that advances our interests and values; or, maybe just as bad, no one is, and then you've got chaos, a vacuum that tends to be filled by bad things before it's filled by good things, and, either way, bad for America."
• "So, I think a Biden administration would actually reassert American leadership, leading with our diplomacy.  We'd actually show up again, day-in, day-out.  And we'd engage the world not as it was in — you know, in 2009 or even 2017, when we left office — but as it is and as we anticipate it's going to become in the coming years."

"A Biden-Harris ticket would return us to the days of appeasement and globalism that were catastrophic for American foreign policy," Ken Farnaso, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign said in response to Blinken's comments.

• “After decades of the status quo, President Trump has made it clear that Americans will no longer take a back seat to the rest of the world. President Trump has taken bold, decisive action to keep multinational organizations accountable, level the international economic playing field, and put America First.”