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Home » FULL TRANSCRIPT: Joe Biden’s Final Address To UN General Assembly 2024

FULL TRANSCRIPT: Joe Biden’s Final Address To UN General Assembly 2024

Read the full transcript of US President Joe Biden’s final address to UN General Assembly 2024 on September 24.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: My fellow leaders, today is the fourth time I’ve had the great honor of speaking to this Assembly as President of the United States. It will be my last. I’ve seen a remarkable sweep of history. I was first elected to the office of the United States of America’s U.S. senator in 1972. Now, I know I look like I’m only 40. I know that. I was 29 years old.

Back then, we were living through an inflection point, a moment of tension and uncertainty. The world was divided by the Cold War. Middle East was headed toward war. America was at war in Vietnam at that point, the longest war in America’s history. Our country was divided and angry. There were questions about our staying power and our future.

But even then, I entered public life not out of despair, but out of optimism. The United States and the world got through that moment. It wasn’t easy or simple without significant setbacks. But we went on to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons through arms control and then go on to bring the Cold War itself to an end. Israel and Egypt went to war, but then forged a historic peace. We ended the war in Vietnam. The last year in Hanoi, I was met with Vietnamese leadership.

We elevated our partnership to the highest level. It’s a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the capacity for reconciliation. But today, the United States and Vietnam are partners and friends. As proof, even from the horrors of war, there’s a way forward. Things can get better. We should never forget that.

A Career of Progress

I’ve seen that throughout my career. In the 1980s, I spoke out against apartheid in South Africa. And then I watched the racist regime fall. In the 1990s, I worked to hold Milosevic accountable for war crimes. He was held accountable. At home, I wrote and passed the Violence Against Women Act to end the scourge of violence against women and girls, not only in America, but across the world, as many of you have as well.

But we have so much more to do, especially against rape and sexual violence as weapons of war and terror. We were attacked on 9/11 by al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. We brought him justice. Then I came to the presidency in another moment of crisis and uncertainty.

I believed America had to look forward. New challenges, new threats, new opportunities were in front of us. We needed to put ourselves in a position to see the threats, to deal with the challenges, and to seize the opportunities as well. We needed to end the era of war that began on 9/11.

Ending America’s Longest War

As Vice President to President Obama, he asked me to work to wind down the military operations in Iraq. And we did, painful as it was. When I came to office as president, Afghanistan had replaced Vietnam as America’s longest war. I was determined to end it, and I did.

It was a hard decision, but the right decision. Four American presidents had faced that decision, but I was determined not to leave it to the fifth. It was a decision accompanied by tragedy. Thirteen brave Americans lost their lives along with hundreds of Afghans in a suicide bomb. I think of those lost lives, I think of them every day. I think of all the 2,461 U.S. military deaths over a long 20 years of that war. 20,744 American servicemen wounded in action.

I think of their service, their sacrifice, and their heroism. I know other countries lost their own men and women fighting alongside us. We honor their sacrifices as well. To face the future, I was also determined to rebuild my country’s alliance and the partnerships to a level not previously seen. We did. We did just that, from traditional treaty alliances to new partnerships like the Quad with the United States, Japan, Australia, and India.

Hope in the Face of Challenges

I know many look at the world today and see difficulties and react with despair, but I do not. I won’t. As leaders, we don’t have the luxury. I recognize the challenges from Ukraine to Gaza to Sudan and beyond. War, hunger, terrorism, brutality, record displacement of people, the climate crisis, democracy at risk, strangeness in our societies, the promise of artificial intelligence and its significant risk. The list goes on.

But maybe because of all I’ve seen and all we have done together over the decades, I have hope. I know there is a way forward. In 1919, the Irish poet William Butler Yeats described a world, and I quote, “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” Some may say those words describe the world not just in 1919, but in 2024. But I see a critical distinction. In our time, the center has held.

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Leaders and people from every region and across the political spectrum have stood together, turned the page. We turned the page on the worst pandemic in a century. We made sure COVID no longer controls our lives. We defended the UN Charter and ensured the survival of Ukraine as a free nation. My country made the largest investment in climate, clean energy ever anywhere in history.

The Path Forward

There will always be forces that pull our countries apart and the world apart. Aggression, extremism, chaos and cynicism. Desire to retreat from the world and go it alone. Our task, our test is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than those pulling us apart. That the principles of partnership that we came here each year to uphold can withstand the challenges. That the center holds once again.

My fellow leaders, I truly believe we’re in another inflection point in world history.