History will not treat the Biden admin kindly. Its incompetence has been astounding.
And now this unsettling U.S. hostage news is being swept under the rug by the Biden-Harris regime.
Foreign policy has been the bane of the existence of the Joe Biden & Kamala Harris administration since their first year in executive power. The Afghanistan pullout disaster was just the initial sign to come. The U.S. is not safer than it was four years ago and international relations are at an all-time low, partly due to a weak sitting U.S. President and Vice President.
One of the ways in which the Biden administration has been criticized in the foreign policy game is the way they have handled the hostage situations for innocent Americans being held against their will around the world. The priorities of the Biden administration have been all wrong, letting some Americans rot in prison when they did nothing wrong while working overtime to cut deals with foreign leaders that are unfair to the United States.
Just consider how Joe Biden and his regime negotiated with Russia for the release of a WNBA player, Brittney Griner, who was being held in Russia to serve a sentence for smuggling in drugs that are illegal in Russia. What did the United States give up for Griner’s release? A supremely dangerous Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, known as the Merchant of Death.
In many other situations, Joe Biden has caved in to the demands of America’s enemies to free the Americans. Sure, it’s a good thing that Americans are given their rightful freedom, but too often this administration has not considered the costs of negotiating with the enemy.
Recently, the Biden administration has secured the freedom of Americans wrongfully detained by the Chinese Communist regime. The cost? Well, that’s classified at this time. The world gets to know who the United States gets back, but the U.S. is not allowed to discuss the individuals the Biden admin is releasing back to the Chinese Communists.
On Wednesday, three Americans were freed from detention in China as part of a prisoner swap between Washington and Beijing. The release of the detainees marks the end of prolonged negotiations between U.S. and Chinese officials, according to Politico, which was the first to report on their release.
A spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) shared with Axios, “We are pleased to announce the release of Mark Swidan, Kai Li, and John Leung from detention in the People’s Republic of China.”
The three Americans were already en route to the U.S. by Wednesday morning, as reported by The New York Times, citing senior U.S. officials who wished to remain anonymous.
“Thanks to this Administration’s efforts and diplomacy with the PRC, all of the wrongfully detained Americans in the PRC are home,” the NSC spokesperson added.
The three men had been held in China for several years, with the U.S. State Department formally recognizing Li and Swidan as wrongfully detained. Swidan had been arrested in 2012 on drug charges, Li in 2016 on espionage charges, and Leung in 2021, also on espionage allegations.
The Downside of the Prisoner Swap
The detainees were exchanged for at least one unidentified Chinese national, according to the Times. The details of who the United States is handing over to the Chinese government are not being made public and may never be made public.
It is not currently known whether the secrecy of the individuals being released to the Chinese is a result of the Biden administration’s negotiations or the Chinese regime’s negotiations. If that is a request from the Biden administration, that makes one wonder why the White House wants to keep these profiles under wraps. If it’s the Chinese requesting the secrecy, the next question is why the Biden administration would agree to that.
This raises the concerns that, yet again, the foreign policy failures of the Biden-Harris White House are putting America last. It’s wonderful that Americans who are wrongfully detained are eventually let go. But it makes you wonder at what cost. Whatever happened to the U.S. getting the long end of the stick?
Breaking foreign policy news and reports will be brought to you right here on The Federalist Wire.
