As the Joe Biden era comes to a close, I once again offer my annual lists of the 10 best and 10 worst things the president did in the past year (a tradition I started in the first term of Donald Trump and will continue in the second). In the spirit of the season, I will lead off with the best.

10. He helped get NATO allies to spend more on our collective defense. At the 75th anniversary NATO summit in Washington, NATO announced that non-U. S. members were projected to spend $510 billion more on defense this year than they did in 2016.

9. He killed the top Islamic State commander in Iraq. Biden launched an Aug. 29 raid that devastated the group’s top leadership in Iraq, killing its top commander, Ahmad Hamid Husayn Abd-al-Jalil al-Ithawi, and its top bombmaker, Abu Ali al-Tunisi (who had a $5 million bounty from the U.S. government on his head). He also launched a raid that killed Mushtaq Jawad Kazim al-Jawari, the leader of an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq responsible for planning and carrying out attacks against American personnel.

8. He imposed new restrictions on the sale of advanced chip technology to China. For the third time in his presidency, Biden imposed new prohibitions on the sale of chips and specialized machinery to make cutting edge chips to China. He also added more than 140 Chinese entities to a restricted trade list, with the goal of stopping Beijing from producing its own advanced chips that can be used for cyberattacks, new military technology to threaten the United States and its allies, and surveillance systems to repress the Chinese people.

7. He sent the largest package of military aid to Taiwan ever. In September, Biden approved $567 million in new security assistance to Taiwan.

6. He strengthened the U.S.-Japan alliance to counter China, including the formation of a joint defense council, a new “Joint Force” operational headquarters led by a three-star commander, and new trilateral military cooperation between the U.S., Japan and the Philippines. The strengthening of our Pacific alliances will be among his most enduring legacies.

5. He secured passage of nearly $32 billion in military aid to Ukraine. The arms package ensured that Donald Trump will not inherit a military disaster in Ukraine when he takes office. Biden also sent U.S. antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine to stop the advance of Russian troops, belatedly delivered F-16 fighter jets and long-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Kyiv — and, in his final weeks in office, finally allowed Ukraine to use the missiles to strike Russian territory (from which Russian forces had been targeting Ukrainian civilians, troops and critical infrastructure with impunity).

4. He defended Israel from the air with U.S. fighter aircraft. When Iran attacked Israel in April, Biden deployed U.S. fighter pilots over the skies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia to defend Israel, shooting down 80 attack drones and six ballistic missiles before they reached Israeli airspace. U.S. forces coordinated with Israel to repel another Iranian attack in October. Biden also deployed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to Israel to combat the missile threat from Iran and its terrorist proxies.

3. He signed legislation to ban TikTok. The Chinese-owned social media app has more than 170 million American users, giving the Chinese Communist Party the ability to collect unprecedented reams of information on them, including search and browsing histories, keystroke patterns and biometric identifiers, faceprints and voiceprints, passwords, location data and message drafts. The bill Biden signed would ban TikTok in the United States if its Chinese parent company does not sell it to a company that isn’t Chinese within a year.

2. He began the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Biden unleashed the worst border crisis in American history, while dramatically reducing deportations to just 59,011 in his first year in office. But in year four, he finally reversed course — increasing deportations to 271,484, the highest level since 2014. He also implemented new rules that sharply restrict asylum claims, causing illegal border crossings to plunge in 2024 — all without any additional authorities or resources from Congress.

1. He finally decided not to run for a second term. To anyone who watched Biden falling asleep during his meeting with world leaders in Angola, or read the Wall Street Journal’s stunning exposé on how the White House functioned with a cognitively diminished president, it was obvious he was not capable of serving four more years in office. Biden took far too long to act (and only did so when his hand was forced by Democrats panicking over his disastrous debate performance) but he eventually did the right thing and stood down.

In my next column, I will review the 10 worst things Biden has done this year ...