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US President Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday not to run in the next presidential election echoed well beyond America, with leaders worldwide offering praise or criticism to the outgoing commander-in-chief, Newsweek reported.

During his term, Biden’s approach to transatlantic allies contrasted with that of former President and current Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. A NATO-skeptic, Trump said earlier this year that he would allow Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” with allies failing to meet military spending criteria, Axios wrote.

“Thanks to (Biden) transatlantic cooperation is close, NATO is strong and the USA is a good and reliable partner for us,” said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

World leaders including Poland’s Donald Tusk, the United Kingdom’s Sir Keir Starmer, and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre described Biden’s move as selfless. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the president made his decision “in the interest of the United States of America, as he has done his whole public life.”

But Biden’s announcement sends not only his Democratic Party but also US allies into unchartered waters, struggling with wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the Associated Press wrote.

“Israel has lost perhaps the last Zionist president,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York, told the newswire.

As Vice-President Kamala Harris is widely expected to take the lead and run against Trump, her relations with Israel are under closer scrutiny, Israeli left-leaning outlet Haaretz reported, noting that Harris had regularly been dubbed Biden’s “bad cop.”

Nonetheless, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that his country would remain “an irreplaceable ally” of the United States, no matter who won the November election.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged the “bold steps” Biden took in supporting his country after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. “We will always be thankful for President Biden’s leadership,” Zelenskyy added.

Meanwhile, senior Russian politicians welcomed Biden’s withdrawal as good news. “The goals of the special military operation will be achieved,” said Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian Security Council and former president of the Federation, using Moscow’s term for the war.

Chinese leaders refused to comment on Biden’s decision, with spokesperson Mao Ning calling it “an internal affair of the United States.”

But the news was heavily debated on Chinese social media platforms, gaining over 400 million views and tens of thousands of comments on Weibo that by and large were sure Trump would win the presidential race, Voice of America reported.