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US President Joe Biden is shortly due to deliver the final foreign policy address of his presidency. A livestream of the speech, taking place at the State Department, is available here.  

• The speech kicks off Biden's farewell week to US politics: On Tuesday, he’ll deliver White House remarks on conservation; on Wednesday he will deliver his final Oval Office address; on Thursday, he will attend a final event at the Department of Defence; and on Friday, he will address the US Council of Mayors.
• A senior administration official told reporters: “[Biden] will describe how we reclaimed America’s global leadership as a force of stability, put our adversaries in a position of weakness, effectively navigated turbulence around the world and made America stronger at every step… He will discuss how we have dealt with the challenges and threats America faces and ensured that America — not our adversaries — are in the driver’s seat, best positioned to shape our future, and how he will hand the next administration a stronger hand than he inherited.”
• Biden is unlikely to speak in detail on the withdrawal from Afghanistan or the situation in Gaza – two foreign policy issues that undermined his bid for a second presidential term.
• A second Biden administration official told reporters, on Biden’s Oval Office speech: “It’ll be … really very rooted in the moment we’re in and where we go from here. It’ll be his last big chance to communicate with the country.”

RRP usage inches up to $183.669B this afternoon from $178.800B on Friday. Compares to $98.356B on Friday, December 20 - the lowest level since mid-April 2021. The number of counterparties rises to 51 from 48.

A new survey from Gallup has found that the reputation of US leadership remains fragile, across NATO member countries, despite US President Joe Biden’s attempt to shore up the transatlantic partnership. 

• Gallup: “In the last year of Biden’s presidency, the median approval of U.S. leadership across NATO’s 30 member countries was 35%, the lowest of his term. Median disapproval was 51%, the highest of his term.
• “Historically, these ratings were still relatively better than those under Trump or during George W. Bush’s last two years in office. However, ratings under Biden were worse than those during most of the Barack Obama administration, when approval averaged 46% and disapproval averaged 26%.”
• The survey suggests, ahead of Trump's return to the White House on January 20, that Biden's focus on multilateral foreign policy has not wholly repaired tensions within NATO, particularly regarding disagreements in policy towards the Middle East and Ukraine.
• The alliance will be tested further in the coming weeks, with Trump previewing a return to his hardline first-term rhetoric on alliance contributions, calling on NATO members to hit 5% of GDP in defence spending - more than double the current benchmark target.   

Figure 1: Approval of the Leadership of the United States, NATO Member Countries

Source: Gallup