Joe Biden’s election victory will be greeted with a sigh of relief by many US allies, whose trust in Washington was shaken during the four years of President Donald Trump’s combative “America First” approach to the world.
The Biden administration is expected to quickly reverse course on parts of Trump’s foreign policy agenda by joining the Paris agreement on climate change, working more closely with other countries to combat Covid-19 and trying to breathe new life. to the Iran nuclear deal. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies like Germany and France won’t be reprimanded as publicly, and the leaders of adversaries like Russia and North Korea won’t be showered with praise.
However, diplomats warn that Biden, limited by the likely continued Republican control of the Senate, cannot undo all that has changed and will not be able to eliminate concerns about America’s long-term reliability in foreign affairs.
“The world is going to go into a whiplash now,” said Stewart Patrick, senior fellow on global governance and multilateralism at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It will be greeted with a great sigh of relief, but there is no going back to the way things were in the sense that there will be some recognition that Trumpism is not dead.”
Although differences with Europe on crucial issues like China and trade will remain, Biden and his team of national security officials will usher in a return to a more pleasant way of operating than a Trump administration that other leaders found erratic and sometimes erratic. offensive.
“Tonight, the whole world is looking at America. And I think America is a beacon to the world at our best, ”Biden said at a jubilant supporters rally Saturday night in Wilmington, Delaware. “We will lead not only by the example of our power, but also by the power of our example.”
Before the elections, European officials had increasingly questioned whether the multilateral system, from the United Nations to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to the World Trade Organization (WTO), could survive another four years of Trump. His zero-sum approach to issues such as trade and the environment made the relationship with Europe especially tense.
“Dealing with him has been extraordinarily unpleasant for these leaders, perhaps most notably German Angela Merkel,” said Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard University. “No one has really enjoyed doing business with Trump himself. Regardless of what they think of Biden’s style, it will be a huge improvement for them. “
Biden, who during his nearly five decades in office served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as vice president, has vowed to restore American leadership of the postwar international order that Trump repeatedly undermined.
‘We are back’
“On the first day, if I win, I’ll be on the phone with our NATO allies saying, ‘We’re back,'” Biden said in an Arizona television interview in July.
In particular, America’s allies have expressed optimism that a Biden administration could mobilize support for an ambitious global climate agenda.
“A Biden presidency would not only significantly accelerate America’s decarbonization process, it would also affect the climate efforts of other countries,” said Simone Tagliapietra, a researcher at Bruegel, a European think tank focused on economics.
Biden has proposed a $ 2 trillion climate plan calling for an emission-free power grid in the US within 15 years, although likely Republican control in the Senate may limit Biden’s climate agenda primarily to actions he can take. through an executive order.
More broadly, any effort to win Senate approval for a major treaty may be doomed, Walt said.
“There is no possibility of a Republican Senate ratifying a treaty on an important issue, not on trade, not on digital governance, not on gun control, and certainly not on climate,” he said. “You can make executive deals, like Obama did, but other countries won’t make big sacrifices for deals that could be revoked in 2024.”
As the coronavirus pandemic rages globally, Biden is likely to reverse Trump’s decision to leave the World Health Organization.
European officials, who have tried to keep the Iran nuclear deal alive despite Trump’s effort to dismantle the deal after resigning from it in 2018, say they will work with the Biden administration to revive the deal. Still, they face hurdles thrown at the end of the Trump administration through a series of revived sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Among the complications: Countries close to the US in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, will push for a seat at the table in any conversation with Iran after being excluded during the Obama administration. Biden, according to a diplomat from the region.
“I will offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy,” Biden wrote in an opinion piece for CNN. “If Iran strictly complies with the nuclear deal again, the United States would rejoin the deal as a starting point for follow-up negotiations. With our allies, we will work to strengthen and expand the provisions of the nuclear agreement, while addressing other issues of interest. “
The biggest impact of the Biden presidency will be a revitalization of the notion that the United States can work with allies in a more predictable way. In everything from trade to climate to peace efforts, the Trump administration has frequently frozen allies, who often learn of developments from the news.
Conflicts persist
Areas of conflict with other countries will persist, reflecting increasingly divergent interests of the United States in some key areas.
European partners will differ from the United States on everything from the toughness of Russia and China to regulation of big tech companies and free trade and defense spending, several diplomats said.
The Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro emulated Trump and became closer to the United States than any other Latin American president. He will fight to keep that under Biden, who has criticized the expansion of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and leaders he considers authoritarian. Regional officials will also look for nuances in how Biden handles Venezuela’s political and economic crisis, as well as his rapprochement with Mexico.
Middle Eastern allies may view Biden’s victory with some ambivalence. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Israel all benefited from Trump’s penchant for looking the other way on their internal human rights affairs. But Biden is unlikely to reverse the wave of normalization accords between Israel and some Arab nations that Trump struck in recent months.
A key question will be how Biden deals with China after ties became increasingly acrimonious towards the end of Trump’s presidency. Both Biden and Trump promised to be tough on Beijing, but Biden vowed to work with his allies to force China to “play by the rules.”
In Asia, “we heard some fears coming from Japan and India that under Biden the United States could return to a multilateral and institutional approach” that China could manipulate to its benefit, said Bruno Macaes, Portugal’s former Europe minister and a senior non-resident official. . member of the Hudson Institute.
And while Europe may financially support the US stance on China, it may be less aligned with Beijing’s growing military assertiveness in Asia, said Rosa Balfour, director of Carnegie Europe.
“I’m not sure the Europeans would be on the same page as the United States, for example, if China were to increase tensions against Taiwan,” Balfour said. “Europe is not so concerned about China’s rise or its role in the South China Sea,” he added.
Despite the prospect of continuing differences, “America’s allies will feel like they have woken up from a nightmare,” said Harvard’s Walt. “But that doesn’t mean you can turn back the clock to 2015 and start over.
.
