At the lowest in the polls, Joe Biden boasts of his "quiet strength" in a campaign clip featuring his trip to Ukraine in February.
The 80-year-old Democratic president, who is seeking a second term, presents himself as a leader who is not afraid to confront "dictators" to better contrast, according to his campaign team, with the Republican opposition and his potential rival in the November 2024 election, Donald Trump.
Joe Biden established himself as the architect of the Western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and is proud, according to him, of having restored America's image on the international scene after the years Trump, for example, renewing the alliances of the United States.
The former American president has vowed to do everything to end the war in Ukraine if he is elected in 2024.
“In the middle of a war zone, Joe Biden showed the whole world what America is made of,” assures a narrator in this one-minute clip, like a film trailer, which will be broadcast in key states in during the weekend.
“It is the quiet strength of a true leader who does not back down from a dictator,” adds the comment with an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin in support.
The broadcast of the clip coincides with the American president's trip to India on Friday and Saturday to participate in a G20 summit, then to Vietnam on Sunday.
Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kiev on February 20, prepared in the greatest secrecy and unprecedented for a President of the United States to a country at war where there are no American forces on the ground.
"He entered Ukraine under the cover of night, and in the morning, Joe Biden walked hand-in-hand with our allies through the war-torn streets, defending democracy where a tyrant is waging war to wipe it out. ", tells the video in a cheerful style where we hear the sound of sirens warning of an imminent air raid.
Mr. Biden can still be seen sitting at a desk on the train that brought him to Kiev from Poland, or in the streets of the capital alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, decked out in the aviator glasses he wore. loves.
Foreign policy is generally not a strong theme of a presidential campaign in the United States; Americans are more concerned about the state of the economy, inflation or immigration.
Especially since the war in Ukraine does not particularly mobilize American public opinion, as long as the Biden administration maintains its line of massive financial and material support for kyiv without putting troops on the ground.
However, President Biden faces a declining popularity rating, growing questions related to his age and his difficulties in getting his message across on the recovery of the economy.
So his team puts forward a leader leading the fight against authoritarianism and the defense of Ukraine, making it a campaign argument against the Republican opposition, of which several of the candidates for the White House question American support.
But this could backfire.
A year and a half after the start of a bogged-down war -- and more than $43 billion in military aid -- the question of the continuity of this support, "as long as it takes", to Ukraine, could arise as the election approaches.
A deadline is already in sight at the end of September: the approval by Congress of a new budgetary envelope for Ukraine. The Biden administration requested in August an additional windfall of $23 billion, including $13 in military spending for the European country.
So far, support for kyiv has been bipartisan, but the Republican hardliners are starting to take a hit.
09/09/2023 05:33:29 - Washington (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
