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After Joe Biden’s victory in the US elections, the majority of world leaders congratulated the president-elect. Those of Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau arrived minutes after the networks announced that Biden had exceeded the necessary threshold of large voters. Other world leaders, on the other hand, preferred to wait. Some have taken a few hours to congratulate Biden, others have taken a few days, others have not yet. Many of these reluctant leaders lead countries that, for a variety of reasons, have reason to be unhappy with the choice of the Democratic Party candidate and are likely to have problems with the new administration.
Russia
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has yet to comment on the outcome of the elections, and Dmitri Peskov, his spokesman, said the president considered it appropriate “to wait until the election result is final.” There are good reasons to think that Putin is not happy with the result. Donald Trump has never hidden his admiration for the Russian president, while Biden, on the contrary, during the election campaign defined Putin as a “KGB hooligan” and Trump as his “little dog.”
Trump has not always behaved like Putin’s puppy, on the contrary: he has maintained the sanctions against Russia imposed by his predecessor Barack Obama after the crisis in Ukraine, and has emerged from an important nuclear weapons treaty after accusing Moscow of not respecting it . . Other than that, however, Trump’s “America First” policy has been pro-Putin. The United States has neglected fundamental alliances within NATO and with the European Union, leaving Russia much room for maneuver: we still see these days, when Putin only negotiated an agreement to end the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, sharing power. with Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey and leaving the United States out of the negotiations. Biden, by contrast, intends from day one to reconnect with NATO allies and assure them that the United States “is back.”
– Read also: What will Joe Biden do now
Brazil
Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, modeled his political career on that of Donald Trump, and his election in 2018 was seen as a sign of strength by populists around the world. Bolsonaro has greatly cultivated his relationship with Trump and, on the contrary, has already clashed with Joe Biden: during the first presidential debate, Biden said that the United States should have done more to persuade the Brazilian government to protect the Amazon rainforest. Bolsonaro, who in recent years has relaxed forest protection measures, responded that Biden’s remarks were “disastrous.” Even Bolsonaro has yet to congratulate Biden.
– Read also: What can Trump do in recent weeks?
United Kingdom
Donald Trump has always been a Brexit supporter and has repeatedly promised Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, that as soon as the UK exits the European Union, a very beneficial trade deal would be ready for him (which it won’t) . never materializes). By contrast, Barack Obama, of whom Biden was vice-president, implicitly said he was against Brexit: at a rally in London just before the referendum, he said that in the event of Brexit the UK would end up “at the bottom of the line. line “in the business negotiations.
Since then, and following his appointment as prime minister in 2019, Johnson has cultivated ties with Trump. An article from Times released a few days ago, with anonymous sources within Biden’s election committee, states that the president-elect’s team considers “Boris and [Dominic] Cummings as Trump and Bannon. Cummings is Johnson’s closest adviser, Bannon was the same to Trump, before falling from grace. A source from the Democratic Party told the Times, referring to Biden’s committee: “They don’t think Boris Johnson is an ally, they think the UK is an ally.” Biden had also long ago defined Johnson as “a physical and psychological clone of Donald Trump.” Furthermore, the president-elect has Irish origins: a Brexit deal that endangers the peace between Ireland and Northern Ireland would not be well received by his presidency.
It also appears that Biden has not forgotten about a racist offense that Johnson made to Obama in 2016: Commenting on the fact that Obama had removed the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office, Johnson said that the then president had a ” ancestral contempt “. for the British Empire because it would be “partially Kenyan”.
Israel
The Biden presidency will not reduce US support for the state of Israel, which has always been strong, but it will likely reduce the US alignment with the political agenda of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who in recent years has received political support. Trump in virtually every action he takes, and who has benefited greatly from numerous administration decisions, including moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and exiting the Iran nuclear deal, which Netanyahu considered dangerous for the country. Israel security. The Trump administration has also lobbied many Muslim-majority countries to recognize Israel.
Biden, who was one of the creators of the nuclear deal, said he intends to “get back on the path of diplomacy” with Iran and is likely to reopen the Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington, which Trump had closed.
– Read also: What the hell does Trump want to do with Iran?
Saudi Arabia
The Saudi monarchy had developed a very close relationship with the Trump administration, in some cases even personal: Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and his adviser on many issues, is particularly close to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. From a strategic point of view, much of this closeness was due to common aversion towards Iran: as in the case of Israel, the Saudis were very opposed to the nuclear deal desired by the Obama-Biden administration, and they celebrated Trump’s decision. to leave.
Trump also did not retaliate against Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, something for which he was strongly criticized by Biden, who also promised to withdraw US support in the war in Yemen (fought by proxy). between Saudi Arabia and Iran) and “reevaluate” the entire diplomatic relationship, because the United States, he said last October, should not give up its values ”to sell weapons or buy oil.” Saudi Arabia is the largest buyer of American arms. Yet despite the differences, the country has been an ally of the United States for decades, and a Biden administration is unlikely to drastically change that reality.
– Read also: 15 things you might not know about Joe Biden
Poland and Hungary
The two populist European governments have always had a condescending ally in Trump, who has showered the two countries with diplomatic courtesies: he visited Poland in 2017 and in August this year, Polish President Andrzej Duda was the first hosted head of state. in the White House after the coronavirus crisis. Trump also received Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister, in the Oval Office a year ago and congratulated him on his “exceptional work”: “You are respected throughout Europe. Perhaps, like me, you are considered a bit controversial, but you are fine. ”Uniting Trump with the rulers of Poland and Hungary is populism, anti-immigration policies and anti-Europeanism.
Orbán openly applauded Trump’s re-election, as did another European populist, Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who was probably the only head of government in the world to congratulate Trump and not Biden (both Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister). Polish, they congratulated Biden).
It is quite clear that the American people have chosen@realDonaldTrump@Mike_Pencefor # 4moreyears. More delays and facts that deny #MSM, the greater the final triumph for #POTUS. Congratulations@GOPfor good results throughout the #US @iduality pic.twitter.com/vzSwt9TBeF
– Janez Jansa (@JJansaSDS) November 4, 2020
And China?
Not even Chinese President Xi Jinping has yet congratulated Biden. This need not necessarily be considered a negative sign. Even in 2000, when the US presidential election remained in doubt until December, then-President Jiang Zemin waited until all disputes were resolved to congratulate the winner. So it is difficult to say whether or not China will benefit from the election of Joe Biden. On the one hand, Donald Trump’s trade war has been detrimental to the Chinese economy (even the American one), and especially to some companies like Huawei. On the other hand, Donald Trump’s isolationism in foreign policy has benefited China: for example, Trump decided at the beginning of his term to abandon the TPP, the free trade agreement between Pacific countries that the Obama administration had thought, among other things. , as a means of containing Chinese expansionism in the area. The United States’ exit from the agreement has greatly benefited China.
Overall, in part due to the policies of Donald Trump, the attitude of the entire American establishment toward China has become much tougher recently, and this is also true for Biden (the same has happened in China, in reverse). ). The new president is likely to be a more reliable counterpart, but there are many tough proposals against China on his agenda.
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