The impact of his single-term foreign policy is still felt around the globe.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin clasp hands on the north lawn of the White House after signing the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, Mar. 26, 1979, in Washington.A generous description of former President Jimmy Carter's foreign policy track record during his four tumultuous years in the White House would be one defined by peaks and valleys.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin clasp hands on the north lawn of the White House after signing the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, Mar. 26, 1979, in Washington.When Carter left the White House in 1981, it was under a cloud of failure. In the wake of his punishing defeat by Ronald Reagan, Carter told one of his biographers that he was hopelessly distraught and wanted nothing more than to lie low in his native Georgia.
Carter later credited that sacrifice for pulling him from his despair and eventually leading him to found The Carter Presidential Center -- a multifaceted nonprofit aimed at promoting human rights, with missions as varied as election monitoring and eradicating parasitic diseases. People demonstrate against President-elect Donald Trump at Monument to the Martyrs of January 9th and the"eternal flame" in Panama City, Dec. 31, 2024.That sentiment is what drove Carter in 1979 to conclude negotiations with Panama aimed at giving the Central American nation control of the Panama Canal, administered by the U.S since construction began in 1904 .
Takeyh points to Carter's decision to turn a blind eye towards human rights abuses committed by the Iranian shah's government -- an influential partner in the fight against Soviet influence -- as an example of that inconsistency. Reagan, Carter's successor, is often credited with bringing about the collapse of the Soviet Union, and with it, the end of the Cold War. But Daniel Fried, a former U.S ambassador to Poland and distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, argues that Carter's contributions are overlooked.
"It came at a time when the promotion of human rights was seen to be at odds with the more central priorities of a superpower during the Cold War," she said. Congress swiftly retaliated by passing the Taiwan Relations Act, requiring the U.S. to provide defensive arms to Taiwan -- legislation that Carter signed. The two steps, seemingly at odds, set the tone for the complicated and deeply consequential relationship between the powers that exists to this very day.
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