Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN. 

The United States has drawn heavy criticism through the course of the COVID-19 pandemic for its lack of internationalism and solidarity. From pirating medical supplies during the first wave of the disease and continuing to hoard vaccines as many parts of the world still endure devastating outbreaks to even continuing unilateral sanctions and aggression against many countries, Washington has failed to effectively lead during the pandemic and, if anything, has only helped to artificially prolong it.  

Despite how ironic the U.S. government's behavior has been so far, President Joe Biden announced on Thursday details for the U.S.'s global vaccine distribution, which will see 80 million doses shared with countries around the world by the end of June with an immediate "down payment" of 25 million doses. 

"We are sharing these doses not to secure favors or extract concessions. We are sharing these vaccines to save lives and to lead the world in bringing an end to the pandemic, with the power of our example and with our values," Biden's statement said.  

"Strong American leadership is essential to ending this pandemic now, and to strengthening global health security for tomorrow – to better prevent, detect and respond to the next threat. The United States will be the world's arsenal of vaccines in our shared fight against this virus," the statement noted.  

These doses, many of which will be distributed through the COVAX program, will mark a significant boost in that program's output, which has so far only shipped just over 76 million doses. However, this doesn't speak to the valor of some nonexistent American internationalism but rather underscores the failure of the COVAX framework because it relied on the generosity of rich countries.  

Sure, Biden's plan to ship vaccines, especially when the country is oversupplied, is a positive start, but the U.S. must be more ambitious if it wants to actually lead and be the "world's arsenal of vaccines." Moreover, if indeed the goal of this plan is to get as many vaccines in the arms of as many people as possible, then the U.S. should be supporting a broader multilateral effort that is not simply confined to rich countries.  

One of the easiest ways to make that happen would be to end the policies and information warfare tactics coming from the U.S. that undermine vaccines developed in other countries like China, Russia or Cuba, and actually work together for the greater good.  

Biden said that his administration "will continue to follow the science and to work in close cooperation with our democratic partners to coordinate a multilateral effort, including through the G7," but this statement actually contradicts itself. The reason is that science and politics don't mix, and the last half of this statement is political because what Biden means here is that the U.S. will support the science only insofar as it advances the global power consolidation of the U.S. and its "democratic partners," which basically just refers to rich countries like those in the G7.  

If the U.S. objectively cared about "the science" then nearly 600,000 of its citizens wouldn't have died from COVID-19 so far; the U.S. government wouldn't be trying to distract from its abject failure by pushing the ridiculous "lab leak" theory to the public and American media outlets wouldn't be running stories everyday that question the effectiveness of vaccines produced by non-Western countries.  

This is why the U.S. global vaccine distribution plan is fundamentally political: It's just theater to promote the brand of a few rich countries that failed to lead the world through a global catastrophe responsibly and were caught red-handed. Despite what Biden might have said in his statement, the U.S. will try to use its vaccine supply to increase its soft power and consolidate support for its greater geopolitical ambitions.  

The fact that on Sunday three U.S. senators – Tammy Duckworth and Dan Sullivan of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Christopher Coons of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – met with senior local leaders in Taiwan to both ostensibly boost Taiwan separatism and announce the donation of 750,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses serves as a clear case in point. The most cynical part about the U.S. global vaccine plan is that it's actually doing what it had for so long accused China of doing, which is engaging in vaccine diplomacy.  

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