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LONDON – For a world that held its breath as Americans went to the polls last Tuesday, Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory over President Trump drew many emotions, but most of all, a deep sigh of relief.
As news of Biden’s victory echoed from Europe and the Middle East to Asia and Latin America on Saturday, foreign leaders showered him with congratulations. Diplomats and commentators expressed gratitude, satisfaction and even elation that a new president would bring a much-needed return to normalcy, something that alarmingly faded the day Trump took office.
“Welcome back America!” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a Twitter message to Mr. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, hailing Canada’s historic friendship with the United States, said: “I am looking forward to working together.” French President Emmanuel Macron said: “We have a lot to do to overcome today’s challenges. Let’s work together! “Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany declared:” Our transatlantic friendship is irreplaceable, if we want to overcome the great challenges of our time. “
For many world leaders, the significance of this election was both the impeachment of Trump and the initiation of Biden.
The former vice president is a familiar fixture on the world stage, a centrist Democrat likely to restore the traditional habits and methods of American power abroad. Trump, who did not hold any office prior to the presidency, has been a major disruptor, leaving alliances in shambles and casting doubt on the liberal international order the United States helped build after World War II.
“I am feeling optimistic for the first time in quite some time,” said Simon Fraser, former director of Britain’s Foreign Office. “I don’t expect a radical change in American foreign policy, but I do expect a change in body language and tone, and a shift from unilateralism to collaborating with allies.”
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s prime minister, did not wait for the race to be called, tweeting on Friday night: “The world can be a dark place at times right now, but today we are seeing a little break in the clouds. “.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whom Trump has treated as an ideological twin due to his populist tactics and his defense of Brexit, issued a more moderate statement, but singled out Harris for her “historic achievement” as the first elected woman. vice president.
“The United States is our most important ally,” he said, “and I look forward to working closely on our shared priorities, from climate change to trade and security.”
For the allies in Europe, the relief was palpable. Trump backed Brexit because he saw it as a way to undermine the European Union. It imposed tariffs on European exports, withdrew from the Paris climate accord and intimidated France and Germany for not paying enough to support NATO.
Even European leaders who tried to establish a relationship with Trump, such as Macron, eventually gave up. Diplomats said these leaders now hoped to reestablish the transatlantic relationship, particularly as Biden is expected to emphasize repairing worn-out ties with Europe.
“You will be able to have a coherent conversation with a normal boy,” said Gérard Araud, the former French ambassador to Washington, who participated in the often discursive exchanges between Trump and Macron.
Araud said the arrival of Biden, a “nice guy, a smiling guy,” as he put it, would have an emotional resonance for many Europeans, particularly older ones, who struggled to reconcile Trump’s inflexible “America first.” vision with the generous country, although imperfect, that they knew in the postwar period.
“They need to love America,” he said. “There is a romantic relationship with the United States, which Americans always underestimate.”
Yet few Europeans believe the United States will ever return to the intense global engagement that characterized it at the height of its power. Deep divisions in American society and closed elections suggested to some that the United States under Biden’s presidency would remain looking inward and concerned about internal problems.
Le Monde, one of France’s leading newspapers, said in an editorial this week that “Trumpism” was a “lasting legacy of American politics”, not an accident or a brief “interlude.”
For countries that prospered under Trump, Biden’s victory elicited duller reactions.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a staunch Trump ally who had a cold relationship with his predecessor, Barack Obama, appeared to be awaiting official results before congratulating Biden.
Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn of the centrist Blue and White Party of Israel, which is part of the Netanyahu-led unity government, congratulated Mr. Biden and said he was confident that US-Israel relations “would continue. and they would even get stronger under a Biden Administration. “
Mr. Biden has been a strong supporter of Israel. But in 2010, Netanyahu alienated the then vice president when his government announced the approval of 1,600 Jewish settlements in the West Bank shortly after Biden was still in the country. Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, berated Netanyahu for what the White House deemed an affront.
Across the Arab world, people followed elections to test what they lack at home: the opportunity to change the ruler through the ballot box.
“It’s fascinating,” said Basil Salloukh, associate professor of political science at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. But he said he did not expect major changes in US policy toward the region.
“Tomorrow we will wake up and realize that the United States is still the new imperial power and supports regimes and causes that are not on the side of freedom and democracy globally,” said Salloukh.
There was no immediate reaction from Arab leaders like Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, some of whom cultivated close ties with Trump.
Turkey’s president, Turkey’s strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, talks to Trump once a month, a relationship that has helped the country avoid sanctions and heavy fines. News organizations close to the Erdogan government have openly supported Trump and bitter at the signs of his defeat.
Biden’s long political career has left him with a vast list of contacts among world leaders. When he visited Turkey in 2011, Erdogan, who was recovering from a medical procedure, invited him to his private residence. The two men, dressed in slippers, had a two-hour conversation on sensitive topics, including Syria and Turkey’s opposition to the new sanctions against Iran.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m inflating my importance or relationship with him,” Biden told reporters, “but we have listened. And he was genuinely listening to my perspective and not challenging it. “
Biden has a long foreign policy record from his days in the White House and Senate, which foreign leaders are searching for clues on how the direction of US policy toward their countries might change.
In Afghanistan, officials have been encouraging Biden’s victory and the rollback of Trump’s policies, namely the gradual withdrawal of US troops under a February peace deal with the Taliban, signed in Qatar.
Iran also looked for hope in a new beginning. Many Iranians rejoiced over the defeat of a president who devastated their economy with sanctions, increased tensions on the brink of war and assassinated a top general.
“Trump and his followers are collapsing into the trash can of history while our Iran stands,” said Ali Gholizadeh, a political analyst at Mashhad Tehran.
Not everyone appreciated the change.
In Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orban has presided over what he has called an “illiberal state”, the far-right Volner Party said it would demonstrate in front of the US embassy in Budapest against “possible electoral fraud in the US presidential elections. United and in solidarity with President Donald Trump ”.
Shortly after the US media called the race for Mr. Biden, “Biden” became the hottest topic on Weibo, a Chinese platform similar to Twitter.
Hu Xijin, editor of the China nationalist tabloid Global Times, said Trump “had not yet shown a gesture of readiness to accept defeat,” adding that “American society is now highly divided, creating the ground for a greater political derailment “.
But Hu’s outlet Global Times tweeted shortly after that “Biden’s victory could offer ‘breathing space’ for China-US relations. ‘
The reports were contributed by Steven Erlanger in Brussels, Aurelien Breeden and Liz Alderman in Paris, Melissa Eddy in Berlin, Ben Hubbard in Beirut, Lebanon, Isabel Kershner in Jerusalem, Jeffrey Gettleman in New Delhi, Ivan Nechepurenko in Moscow, Vivian Wang in Hong Kong, Fatima Faizi and Najim Rahim in Kabul, Farnaz Fassini in New York, Catherine Porter in Toronto and Anna Joyce in Dublin.
