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From Beijing to Caracas to Moscow, governments, state-controlled media and online commentators reacted with schadenfreude, accusing Washington of hypocrisy and double standards.

The images of mobs attacking sacred institutions of government or coup attempts are familiar to people living in states ruled by dictators and autocrats. But overseas television viewers are certainly not accustomed to seeing such images beamed live from the capital of the world's chief guarantor of democracy, good governance and human rights.

So, after four years of Trump, the US stands weakened on every front, undoubtedly to the delight of all its adversaries and to the dismay of all its allies. Last Wednesday's violence added an exclamation point to the Trump era's message to the world: The US no longer lives by the values it has preached for decades.

Turning the page

In his final days in office, there is no telling what Trump might do, as his legal protections are about to be lifted and legal jeopardy could arrive at his doorstep.

But as for US foreign policy, once in office President-elect Joe Biden can move quickly down the list and cancel out the damaging foreign policies Trump has instituted, reversing the "America first" -- or, in some cases, "Trump first" -- attitude the current President has taken toward a host of global issues and hotspots.

An early test of Biden's foreign policy savviness -- as well as his ability to turn the page from Trump's agenda -- could be in a country he handled as the point man for President Obama: Ukraine.

The large European country of 44.3 million was drawn into a bruising US domestic fight that, in some ways, came to epitomize the anti-democratic excesses of the Trump era. It remains an important country in an important region for the US, sitting as it does on the dangerous fault line between Putin's Russia and US-allied Europe.

Traditionally, the US has been a strong supporter of Ukraine, and now more than ever, Ukraine needs American assistance -- military, political, and cultural -- to prevent it from slipping back into the Russian embrace, or worse, from becoming a failed state.

Amid the world's myriad problems, the prospect of a failed Ukraine is a real danger to the US-led Western alliance. Giving up on Ukraine would almost certainly bring the frontline with Russia farther westward, and that is a scenario which should shake up Americans of all political stripes.

If Biden is to exorcise the demons of Trump's foreign policies and anti-democratic behavior, the culmination of which we all witnessed on January 6, Ukraine would be an appropriate place to start.

Serving Putin's agenda

Aside from boosting America's global credibility, there's another Trump-era trend that Biden should seek to reverse: American policies that benefit Putin.

And it has been alleged by some that Russia's boldest move to date against the US during the Trump years was a massive cyberattack in December, which some have suspected emanated from Russia; that alleged action passed without any serious rebuke from the White House.

What Trump did in a mere four years to advance Putin's objectives must have exceeded the Russian President's wildest dreams.

Now here is the task list

In some ways, rivalry with Russia has been the US foreign policy story of the last four years.

The relationship deteriorated into open enmity with Putin's 2014 incursion into Crimea, and it came to dominate American domestic politics after Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election and during the yearslong Mueller investigation, the infamous Trump-Zelensky phone call and the impeachment saga that followed.

If Biden wants to return to the source of all those ills, Ukraine is the place to start.

Here's what needs to be done.

First, an Oval Office meeting, long sought-after by Zelensky but blocked by Trump, should occur in Biden's first 100 days -- providing the Covid-19 situation allows it -- and only if Ukraine can show concrete progress on reintroducing reforms.

Aside from providing a "good housekeeping" seal, such a meeting would send an unambiguous signal to Putin that the US has Ukraine's back. After Trump gave Putin a free pass to do almost whatever he wants, Biden needs to send a clear signal to the Kremlin that further adventurism and meddling will not be tolerated.

Seeking a pro-democracy revival

The November election was anything but a mass repudiation of Trumpism and his America-first policies- - in a way, it is most notable that so many Americans chose Trumpism again after four years of it -- but I find it difficult to believe that the majority of Americans are prepared to see the US exit from the world stage.

Biden needs to act quickly to salvage America's reputation overseas, lest the void be filled by other world leaders less interested in the promotion of values we hold so dear.

Care to wager a guess as to which foreign leaders might want to seize on that vacuum?

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Can America still promote democracy? Yes, and it should start with Ukraine - CNN