Commentators call on Biden to learn from Nixon's playbook

The Biden administration should take a page out of the playbook of former U.S. President Richard Nixon when it comes to foreign policy and the economy, two columnists wrote in recent opinion pieces. Arguing the challenges faced by the Nixon administration are similar to those testing President Joe Biden now, Tom Switzer, a commentator on international affairs and researcher of a think tank, noted that Nixon foretold the loss of American pre-eminence half a century ago."The United States no longer is in the position of complete pre-eminence or predominance," Nixon told some senior media officials in 1971 when the U.S. was undergoing racial unrest, campus unrest and anti-war protests, Switzer wrote in "Nixon Warned About U.S. Decline," an articlepublished in the Wall Street Journal. Nixon said that was because "we now face a situation where four other powers" – the Soviet Union, Western Europe, Japan and China – "have the ability to challenge us on every front," but stressed that "can be a constructive thing."Nixon later told Time magazine, "I think it will be a safer world and a better world if we have a strong, healthy United States, Europe, Soviet Union, China, Japan, each balancing the other."Switzer noted that as Nixon spoke, his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger was on a secret trip to Beijing to negotiate the opening of Washington's diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China.

He stressed that Nixon called on Americans to adapt to the country's decline in a more plural international environment, and warned that both the media and historians had failed to give enough attention to the 37th U.S. president's candid words.Changing perspectives on the U.S.' place in the world, the pressures brought about by globalization, and the need to balance politics, economic and foreign policies – problems the Nixon administration confronted – are also faced by the Biden administration now, wrote Rana Foroohar, a business columnist at the Financial Times, in her recent article "What Joe Biden Can Learn from Richard Nixon's Playbook."She said the Biden administration would be wise to take some lessons from Nixon, such as populism being balanced with globalism and a "fix the problem at home" approach.

(CGTN)