World leaders wake up to the prospect of President Biden
For the past twenty-four hours, the world has been watching as the map of the United States turns red and blue. We are still watching. The fate of the election could lie in snowy Michigan or along the river banks of the Delaware as it runs through Pennsylvania, but the consequences of America’s choice will be felt across every part of the globe.
Rarely has there been so stark a choice between two leaders, and two visions for the US’ place on the world stage. When the choice was between candidates like Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the policy differences were mere details. But Donald Trump’s stance on the world stage has been genuinely unprecedented and erratic, and in many ways, often a success. By contrast, Joe Biden would be the US reverting to type – the very model of a modern American statesman. Although possibly not modern.
For the nations that have been singled out for closer diplomatic ties, from rogue states like North Korea to isolated allies like Israel, Trump’s Presidency has been a blessing from the heavens. The UK, arguably falling into both categories, has also felt the fresh breeze from the US President’s rotor blades as he has made two visits here which were hailed as a precursor to a “tremendous” post-Brexit trade deal.
For Prime Minister Boris Johnson, these visits must have been like having your embarrassingly affectionate parents take you out of boarding school on a Saturday to buy new cricket gear – potentially economically rewarding, but you’d prefer it if nobody saw you.
The prospect of a Joe Biden presidency will not release him from that awkward predicament. It is clear that the Democratic Party establishment, as well as candidates for Secretary of State such as Susan Rice and Chris Coons, have a general bewilderment about Brexit, and Trump’s somewhat unrequited affection for his fellow floppy-haired blond has become a slightly toxic association.
While all concerned have been at pains to emphasise the importance of the ‘special relationship’, and they will likely warm to London once they start getting access to British intelligence through the Five Eyes alliance, a Biden victory puts Brussels on the map. It is likely that European leaders such as German Chancellor, Angela Merkel and European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, will be among the most substantive congratulatory calls the Democratic candidate has if Biden emerges as President-elect.
If Britain is facing a relegation from the US’ premier league relationships, those anxieties will be felt elsewhere as well. Trump, or more specifically his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been credited with the Abraham Accords, the diplomatic deal that led to the recognition of Israel by Bahrain and the UAE. A coup for any American administration, let alone a first-time peace envoy, Kushner achieved what Democrats like John Kerry had said would be impossible. Like London, Jerusalem knows that it will have to adapt if there is a change at the top in Washington.
One world leader who will be crossing his fingers for a Biden confirmation is Chinese premier, Xi Jinping, who has found himself frequently on the receiving end of Trump’s characteristic bombast. In recent years, the White House has placed itself on a collision course with Beijing on everything from territorial claims in the South China Sea to who takes the blame for the coronavirus pandemic.
When, or more accurately if, Biden finds himself placing his left hand on the Bible and swearing the oath of office come January, China will waste no time in seeking to roll back the tariffs Trump imposed on some $550 billion worth of Chinese goods. Xi’s hope will be that the incoming President can write off the costly hostilities as he closes the book on his predecessor’s legacy.
It has been said that foreign policy is the only real core duty a President has – Congress and the Senate can look after domestic policy, while the Judiciary rules from existing laws. That’s just as well, given it looks increasingly likely that the Republicans will retain the Senate, while Trump’s appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court gives his party a generational lock on the legal system.
In the case of Biden, his foreign policy framework is no mystery. He was chairman of the Senate Committee for Foreign Relations on and off for many years, and his view was coloured by crises like the Yugoslavian Civil War and the expansion of NATO eastwards into the gulf left by the fall of the Soviet Union. His instincts are to build coalitions among America’s traditional allies – European nations and Japan. It is an approach that has stood US Presidents in good stead, but it depends on America being seen to lead the ‘free world.’
However, Biden may well find that after four years of Donald Trump, those partnerships aren’t where he left them when he departed from the White House as Vice President. Europeans, or at least the major US allies in Europe, have been thoroughly contemptuous of the President, and his frosty outlook towards NATO and the European Union has meant the continent has been left, largely, to its own devices. If Biden does want to continue to play tough with China, he will force countries like Germany to choose between political ties with Washington and economic ties with Beijing. The latter is most likely to win out.
A more enigmatic stakeholder in the election is Russia’s Vladimir Putin. When Trump won in 2016, many commentators in the West chalked it up as a victory for the Kremlin. But if Moscow had any hopes for his presidency, four years on these have been thoroughly dashed. Trump has been at best lukewarm towards the world’s largest country, and at worst a barrier to any meaningful dialogue.
The reality is that Putin, like most Russians, probably has a sense of ambivalence at the actual outcome of the US election. That won’t stop him enjoying the schadenfreude like most of his citizens as Russian broadcast news plays footage of boarded up shops and violent protests, dissecting America’s democratic crisis in full. Meanwhile, Russians are today celebrating National Unity Day, a national holiday aimed at creating a sense of national harmony, rather than division.
While Biden might, for his supporters, represent a return to normality in America, for the rest of the world his election as President would represent a lightning-fast change of tack. While Donald Trump was anything but predictable, how Biden might fare in a rapidly changing world, with what could at times seem a dated approach to foreign affairs, will be watched just as closely.