One of President Biden's most specific foreign policy commitments is to convene a global summit on democracy in his first year in office. The purpose of the meeting was to make a public statement against the wave of authoritarianism and populism that Mr. Trump's presidency has seen, Mr. Biden and his advisers believe, threaten to sweep away Western political values.
In the days since Mr Biden's election, however, America's own democracy has faltered.
In early January, a group of Trump supporters stormed Congress to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Next week, the Senate will begin its second impeachment trial against President Trump. Republicans in Congress are ready to cause legislative gridlock by blocking every piece of Biden's agenda.
Foreign adversaries sense that US democracy is dysfunctional, if not completely broken. They cheered and said the US had no right to tell other countries what to do.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the International affairs committee of Russia's Federation Council (the upper house of parliament), wrote on Facebook after the riots in the US Congress: "The US no longer sets the course and therefore loses all right to set the course. What is more, they lose the right to impose their course on others.
Mr. Biden, undeterred by the recent political turmoil in the United States, is likely to be the host of the summit of other heads of state, said a person familiar with the planning.
In Washington, however, former government officials and academics have debated the idea. The debate itself was about summit planning, but more broadly it reflected concerns about America's role as a global leader in the post-Trump era.
The immediate question is whether the political crisis is a reason to postpone plans for the summit and reassess, as some believe, efforts to promote a democratic model around the world.
"The United States has lost credibility, there's no question about it," said James Goldgeier, a professor of international relations at American University who served on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.
He recently wrote in foreign Affairs, a bimonthly magazine, that Mr Biden should instead hold a democracy summit at home -- focusing on "injustice and inequality" in the US, including issues such as voting rights and disinformation.
Goldgeier added: "If [Biden's plans] are completely deadlocked on Capitol Hill, you can't take steps to improve people's lives, you can't have moral authority."
Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, wrote in Foreign Policy this month: "How can the United States spread democracy, or set an example for others, if its domestic democracy is barely functioning? Washington's foreign policy elite remains committed to a 30-year foreign policy aimed at reshaping the world in America's image. They are completely indifferent to what that image has become in 2020."