Katrina vanden Heuvel
Katrina vanden Heuvel, the publisher, part-owner, and former editor of the magazine The Nation is a political commentator on various TV programs, a guest columnist for the Washington Post and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She emphasizes how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt helped found the UN out of the ashes of World War 2 and proffered the Four Freedoms (Freedoms of Speech and Worship and Freedoms from Want and Fear), which are arguably under siege by the former president, Donald Trump. Similar autocratic, anti-democratic insurgents are operating in Hungary, the Philippines, Brazil, Russia and several other countries. She highlights the major differences between the Trump (Unilateralist) and Biden (Multilateralist) foreign policies: it is in America’s interest to actively participate in UN agencies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Human Rights Council, as well as NATO and the EU. Although it was a strategic blunder by Donald Trump to withdraw from the Iranian Nuclear Deal, which actually was successful in blocking Iranian ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon, the Biden Administration has a responsibility to move more aggressively in reactivating the agreement. Other areas of importance are to maintain a strong military defense, reduce the bloated Defense Department budget and the disproportionate influence of the Military-Industrial Complex, provide assistance to veterans and develop more effective lines of communication and dialogue with adversaries such as China and Russia.
