Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Friday, September 24th. I'm Nila Budo. Here's

what you need to know today. What's behind Puerto Rico's high vaccination rate? Plus, the

crisis and daycares across the country. But first, today's one big thing. President Biden's

diplomacy is on the world stage.

To all those who dedicate themselves to this noble mission of this institution, it's my

honor to speak to you for the first time as President of the United States. We meet this

year in a moment of intermingled with great pain and extraordinary possibility.

President Biden struck an optimistic note addressing the UN this week, emphasizing that

the American first doctrines of the Trump administration are in the past. But whether it's

the Afghanistan withdrawal or a new nuclear deal with Australia and the UK, many Western

allies are unhappy with the US. So wanted to ask Axios's Margaret Taliv whether that

American first mentality was really in the past. Hi, Margaret.

Hi, Nila. Can you set the stage for us for President Biden coming into this week when

it comes to foreign affairs or international diplomacy?

For sure, Joe Biden in his half a century path to become President of the United States

has often looked at his experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. His time

is Vice President dealing with Iraq and other strategic issues when it came to foreign

policies. So that was always part of what he'd run on, right? Which is like, I know what

I'm doing on foreign policy. And then you look at, let's say the past month, the US withdrawal

from Afghanistan, look at the deal with the UK and Australia, which seemed like an

amazing new partnership until like 30 seconds later when the French were completely irate

and left the country, right? And on top of that, these images of US border agents using

...