Outgoing President Joe Biden has sought to burnish his foreign policy record, and said US adversaries are weaker than when he took office four years ago despite global crises that remain unresolved, Reuters reports.

A week before handing over to President-elect Donald Trump, Biden addressed US diplomats at the State Department and touted his administration’s backing for Ukraine against Russia’s 2022 invasion and for Israel’s military operations in the Middle East.

Biden said the United States was “winning the worldwide competition” and would not be surpassed economically by China as had been predicted, while Russia and Iran have been weakened by wars without direct US involvement.

“Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are weaker,” Biden said. “We have not gone to war to make these things happen.”

Biden acknowledged that authoritarian states China, Iran, North Korea and Russia were now more closely aligned with one another, but he said that was more “out of weakness than out of strength.”

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