As Election Nears, Foreign Leaders Fear a Vacuum in American Leadership

Without much attention, President Biden this week hosted his last foreign leader in the Oval Office before Tuesday’s election. They discussed the wars in the Middle East and Europe and plotted ways to work together to defeat aggression and alleviate suffering.

But the subtext of this final pre-election meeting was a geopolitical security concern of another sort, one that went unmentioned in the official record of the session but hung over it throughout. Will America still be leading in the world after next Tuesday? And if so, in what direction?

Mr. Biden’s foreign visitor happened to be President Nikos Christodoulides of the Republic of Cyprus, a small island nation in the eastern Mediterranean that gets no attention on the campaign trail but that could play an important role for whoever is the next president. Cyprus, once a financial haven for Russians, has been a key focus of the effort to sever Moscow from the West while also serving as an important conduit for humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The two leaders “had an in-depth discussion on a range of foreign policy issues of mutual interest,” including the Russian war on Ukraine and Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah, according to the summary released by the White House. Mr. Biden praised Cyprus for its “support for the maritime humanitarian corridor” delivering thousands of tons of food and other aid to Gaza.

In an interview after the session, though, Mr. Christodoulides expressed the same concern heard often in Europe and other parts of the world about what he expects to be a volatile period to follow Tuesday’s vote and what it would mean for the international order.

“There is always a fear that you could have an America stepping back, a kind of seclusion and isolation,” Mr. Christodoulides said. “We’ve seen it in the past. That’s the main concern because the region is in turmoil right now. It’s extremely dangerous.”