US PRESIDENT Joe Biden sought to put the Trump era behind him with a major foreign policy speech on Thursday, declaring “America is back. Diplomacy is back.”

Mr Biden committed to maintain US dominance internationally, condemning the “growing ambitions of China to rival the United States.” He cancelled Trump-era plans to withdraw US troops from Germany.

But in a move welcomed by peace campaigners he slammed the “humanitarian catastrophe” caused by the Saudi Arabian war on Yemen, which it has fought with logistical assistance and weaponry from the US and Britain.

“We are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales,” he declared, while adding that the US would continue to support the Gulf kingdom against attacks from “Iranian-supplied forces in multiple countries.”

Saudi Arabia claimed that it had always supported a “comprehensive political solution” to the Yemen war, which it started in 2015 in a bid to unseat the Houthi movement which had overthrown its ally, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Mr Biden promised to “confront” China, citing “economic abuses” including lack of respect for intellectual property as well as “attacks on human rights.”

But he hinted at a less confrontational posture than Mr Trump’s, saying he was “ready to work with Beijing when it’s in America’s interest,” a nod to issues such as climate change and efforts to stamp out the Covid-19 pandemic.

He said that “the days of the United States rolling over” before Russia were over, a reference to Mr Trump’s supposed ties to President Vladimir Putin, though in reality the Trump administration presided over a sharp deterioration in relations with Moscow, tearing up arms control treaties and conducting military manoeuvres in the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Lithuania.