Vice President Joe Biden took the stage at a national security conference Monday to deliver optimistic remarks about the state of the world and a few barely-veiled shots at Donald Trump’s foreign policy ideas.
Speaking at the Center for a New American Security’s annual conference, Biden framed his speech around how he feels the world has changed since he and President Barack Obama took office and how he feels the next president should face new challenges. While Biden did not mention the presumptive GOP nominee by name, he slammed Republicans for not supporting what used to be bipartisan platforms and spoke out against hate speech and intolerance.
“As we continue to urge our allies to do more, generating our closest partners as liabilities is a serious and tragic mistake,” he said. “Our values are what draws the world to our side.”
Biden made several references to tearing down walls and keeping up good relations with the United States’ immediate neighbors.
“If we build walls and disrespect our closest neighbors, we will quickly see all this progress disappear, replaced by a return of anti-Americanism and a corrosive rift throughout our hemisphere,” Biden said. “It matters how you treat other nations, the respect you show or don’t show.”
Biden stressed the importance of maintaining good relationships with Asian countries, clean energy and modeling openness as an American value.
“If we turn inward and undermine our most important relationships or seek sound bite solutions to—defined by complexity, issues defined by complexities, if we forget who we are and begin to betray our values and embrace intolerance I think we’ll squander our hard-earned progress and opportunities that exist for us today,” he said.
In an apparent reference to Trump saying that he would get along with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden noted that the United States must strike a balance in dealing with its erstwhile foe.
“Embracing Putin at a time of renewed Russian aggression could call into question America’s longstanding commitment to a Europe whole, free and at peace,” he said. “But neither is it time to dust off the Cold War playbook.”
Speaking about the spread of the Islamic State terror group and making reference to anti-Muslim rhetoric, Biden said that the best way to combat terrorism is to have allies in the Islamic world and not to give in to hate.
“ISIL wants America to view things as us versus them,” he said. “Why in God’s name are we giving them what they want?”
While much of his speech focused on seeming to slam Trump, Biden did take one moment to advocate for his presidential candidate of choice.
“I just want to say that to the next president, whomever she may be, we left you a perfect world, don’t screw it up,” he said with a smile.
