NEW YORK — President Joe Biden will address the 77th session of the U.N. General Assembly with a modified message about the importance of democracy, underscoring founding U.N. principles rather than rehashing rhetoric he has used on the midterm election campaign trail.
In the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden is poised to rally the world around Ukraine on Wednesday in New York as its conflict with Russia enters its seventh month and the war leaves many hungry and food insecure.
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National security adviser Jake Sullivan downplayed the democracy pivot, emphasizing Biden’s steadfast belief “that democracy and not autocracy is the model that best delivers both for its own citizens and against transnational challenges.”
“He will also say that for every country in the world, whether they’re a democracy or an autocracy, they’ve all signed up to the principles of the U.N. Charter,” Sullivan told reporters Tuesday. “It is a way to speak to every country gathered in that hall, including countries who recently have come out and expressed more concern or more distancing from Russia.”
Biden is likely to additionally raise the following during his General Assembly address:
Russia and Ukraine
The “main thrust” of Biden’s argument regarding Russia and Ukraine is that the United Nations is premised on the idea that “countries cannot conquer their neighbors by force, cannot seize and acquire territory by force,” according to Sullivan.
“He will speak to every country in the world, those that have joined our broad-based coalition to support Ukraine and those who, so far, have stood on the sidelines, that now is a moment to stand behind the foundational principles of the charter,” he said of Biden.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself will address the General Assembly remotely after Biden, though a delegation met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield in person in New York on Tuesday. The U.N. Security Council will also convene Thursday specifically to discuss the conflict.
Food security
Biden missed the Global Food Security Summit on Tuesday, citing Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. But he is set to announce another food security funding commitment “significantly greater than $100 million,” which will supplement assistance from “financial facilities” for “agricultural systems and resilience in the developing world,” according to Sullivan.
“In addition to that, the president will be pressing for the elimination of export bans and of hoarding so that there is a better supply of food to the world market and overall prices come down,” he said.
COVID-19 pandemic
Last week, Thomas-Greenfield told reporters that the United States would be co-hosting a COVID-19 Global Action Plan Ministerial, in part, because the pandemic “is not over.” Two days later, Biden told 60 Minutes it was. But Biden will still stress that the world needs to heed lessons so “we never again face a circumstance like we did over the course of the past two years,” according to Sullivan.
“That means having a financing facility that the U.S. helped stand up at the World Bank,” he said. “It means making sure that we are more rapidly developing vaccine manufacturing capability in the rest of the world. It means that we have to be able to move testing and treatment to a much larger and more rapid extent than we have so far.”
Climate change
Biden’s General Assembly address coincides with the passage of Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act and its $369 billion investment in climate change mitigation. Climate activists had hoped the domestic legislative accomplishment would reestablish U.S. leadership on the issue, but Biden is expected to skip a highly anticipated U.N. roundtable scheduled for Wednesday before the Egypt Climate Change Conference later this year.
China and Iran
It is unclear whether Biden will address China, particularly its human rights record in Xinjiang. China’s treatment of the autonomous region’s majority-Muslim Uyghur population was criticized by former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet before her term expired this summer.
It is clear that Biden will address Iran. Biden will reiterate his preparedness for the U.S. and Iran to mutually return to compliance under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, according to Sullivan.
“I do believe that there will be multiple opportunities for us to consult with the other members of the P5+1, especially the Europeans, while we’re in New York,” he said of the U.N. Security Council’s permanent members, plus Germany. “Iran, of course, will be having its own engagements, not with any of the American delegation but with other delegations.”
UN Security Council reform
Sullivan did not confirm whether Biden will broach U.N. Security Council reform in his public address or simply do so in his private meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Thomas-Greenfield previewed Biden’s position last week when she spoke of how Russia, a Security Council permanent member, “struck at the heart of the U.N. Charter.” She repeated that the U.S. has only relied on its veto power four times since 2009, calling for “sensible and credible” proposals to expand the council’s membership.
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Biden’s two-day trip to New York will also include appearances at the 7th Replenishment Conference for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, as well as a Leaders’ Reception at the American Museum of Natural History. Biden, too, will have a bilateral meeting with new British Prime Minister Liz Truss.
