Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has expressed frustration over President Joe Biden's "America is back" claim made during POTUS' recent address to the State Department.
In an interview with Fox News, Pompeo said that he wonders whether Biden meant "back to when ISIS [Daesh*] controlled a caliphate in Syria that was the size of Britain".
"I hope not. President Trump and our team took that down", the ex-secretary of state added.
Pompeo also said that he wants to know whether Biden saying "America is back" indicates "back to letting China walk all over us, destroying millions of jobs in places like Kansas and South Carolina, that we know so well".
"He talked about allies, when he said go back, does he mean back to dissing allies and friends like Israel and treating the terrorists in Iran like friends by giving them $150 billion in pallets of cash? I don't think the American people can afford to go back to eight more years of Barack Obama's foreign policy. I hope they'll move forward with a foreign policy look much more like our America first foreign policy", the former top US diplomat added.
Pompeo claimed that he "shot straight" when he was secretary of state, stressing that he takes pride in "the alliances that [the Trump] administration built".
The remarks came shortly after Biden made his first diplomatic address as US president, pledging to repair the relationship with Washington's allies and "engage with the world once again".
Pres. Biden: ‘America is back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy’ pic.twitter.com/PJcJt3udKk
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) February 4, 2021
In the address to the State Department, Biden also signalled America's readiness to take a hardline approach to China and Russia, called on Myanmar's military to halt their coup, and announced an end to US support for a Saudi Arabia-led military campaign in Yemen, among other things.
"We are a country that does big things. American diplomacy makes it happen and our administration is ready to take up the mantle and lead once again", Biden asserted.
"At the direction of the president, the department will therefore conduct a global force posture review of US military footprint, resources, strategy, and missions", Austin said in a statement late Thursday.
He added that the review of the US military presence abroad will be conducted in consultation with Washington's "allies and partners".
*Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State), a terrorist group banned in Russia and a number of other countries
