Biden will receive guaranteed applause during the speech on G-7 leaders and the Security Conference in Munich, but his government must expect a rocky path forward.
After talks with his British, French and German counterparts, which are aimed at reviving the nuclear deal in Iran, Foreign Minister Antony Blinken meets with four counterparts (India, Japan and Australia) and the EU Council on Friday. for Foreign Affairs Monday. His audience expects him to play a bad cop, compared to the ever-optimistic Biden.
At other points in the charming attack, Defense Minister Lloyd Austin closed two days of meetings with NATO colleagues, where he successfully argued for delaying the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, while climate delegate John Kerry, today joins UN Secretary-General António Guterres around the US in the Paris climate agreement.
POLITICO spoke to a dozen European and Japanese leaders and senior officials who often lived in fear of former President Donald Trump’s tweets. Although they are positively relaxed about the speeches Biden will deliver on Friday, they know that Biden’s powers are limited.
European leaders in particular are concerned that Trumpism’s survival is skeptical of the results the White House could achieve from a deeply divided US Congress and is not yet being sold to meet Biden’s expectations of China, Russia and trade.
To maximize the chances of a functioning G-7 and a new transatlantic relationship, allies set the bar low for Friday’s rallies.
As president and host of Friday’s G-7 meeting, UK gives Biden a pass mark before opening his mouth. ‘Biden does not have to come to this meeting with a series of creative policy announcements to be important or successful,’ says a senior British diplomat, adding: ‘It is enough to reverse the image of America. I doubt anyone will be disappointed. ”
A Japanese government spokesman stressed that G-7 countries “should lead the international order to COVID”, and expected a full-fledged agreement with the shared democratic values that Biden is expected to advocate.
Even the Hungarian government – which had an antagonistic relationship with the Obama administration – could not sound the alarm about the Biden era: Zoltán Kovács, a cabinet member and government spokesman, said he had no worries or expectations about to transfer him. Biden.
While the hotplate’s commitments to multilateralism and democracy are already flowing, it disguises bubbling transatlantic tensions over issues from trade to energy policy to China.
European officials know that the difficult talks can not be avoided for long. Biden ‘said all the right things’ to reassure Europe after’ Trump’s unpredictable cacophony, “Stubb said.
“But the realistic picture is that the world is radically different from 2016 when Trump entered the scene,” he added. ‘This is the message Blinken must deliver’ when he meets with the EU’s 27 foreign ministers and the bloc’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell. .
Europe is not afraid to go its own way
The EU is shocked by Britain’s vote to leave and caught between an aggressive Russia, an emerging China and a disinterested America under Trump, and has set a course for ‘strategic autonomy’ in recent years. At that time, China also surpassed the US as the EU’s largest trading partner.
The EU’s repositioning is only now bearing fruit, but that does not mean it is superficial either: there is a determined independent approach to China-Russia relations, a strengthened industrial policy, strict digital regulations and taxes, and only a provisional commitment to joint EU defense policy and increased national defense spending.
Although the Biden government sees the EU as an essential pillar of stability in world affairs, it is many of these decisions.
Europeans are also worried that a new Republican government could ruin Biden’s defense and climate commitments within four years, leaving them stranded with long-term investments and no US support. “Who says we will not end up four years from now?” asked a senior German defense official.
National leaders and climate officials welcome US re-entry into Paris climate agreement – Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called it “an encouraging step” but said they would only celebrate it when Congress passed a strict and well-funded target for reducing 2030 emissions achieved. .
Trading tension bargain
As far as trade is concerned, there is benevolence, but it is not an end to disputes that are spreading in public.
Kurz, the 34-year-old Chancellor of Austria, told POLITICO that once progress has been made against Covid-19 and towards economic recovery, “we need to give our trade relations a fresh start by resolving ongoing trade disputes and imposing sanctions. to end as soon as possible. “
Kurz refers to the Trump-era tariffs that the new government has yet to settle, and Biden’s new ‘Made in America’ policy procurement policy, which is causing a stir in Brussels. EU Trade Chief Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters on Thursday: “We will assess the extent to which the US is complying. [World Trade Organization] obligations under the Global Acquisition Agreement. “
As part of a broader review of trade policy, Dombrovskis promised that the EU would be ‘tougher and more assertive’. This includes an attempt by the European Commission to provide an “anti-coercive” trade instrument, enabling it to retaliate against future US attempts to block EU trade. EU officials are frustrated that European companies such as Airbus and Renault have lost out on US sanctions against Iran. Brussels is also concerned that Washington may ban EU companies from transporting goods (such as cars) made with American chips to China, for national security reasons.
“In the coming years, we will see some tension in the field of semiconductors,” said EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton. “We, in Europe, intend to play our full role in this new geostrategic chess game.”
Back in Washington, the administration officials mostly bite their tongues and avoid venturing into controversial geopolitics like the Nordstream II gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, even though the Republicans of the House insist on the imposition of sanctions.
On Trump’s favorite topic of commitments to defense funding, Austin, the Secretary of Defense, wrote Wednesday that the U.S. is “ready to consult, decide and act together,” with NATO allies a strikingly softer show as Trump.
European leaders know that this harmony will not last without extra effort from Europe. “Both President Biden and Secretary Blinken know Europe very well. But it also means that they know that Europe can be a better partner and ally, ‘Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told POLITICO.
“We need to put our European home in order by being united on foreign policy and defense,” de Croo added.
Washington’s frustrations will almost certainly erupt in public around the EU’s pursuit of ‘strategic autonomy’ from the US, China and Russia.
While US officials are rolling their eyes at the bungling of EU relations between Russia and the “technical sovereignty” of the bloc as blatant protectionism, a recent EU-China investment agreement that Angela Merkel and EU officials are deliberately penetrated. the last weeks of the Trump administration.
The China problem
“China will be the elephant in the room,” Stubb said, but others, including the Austrian Kurz, are happy to bring the discussion into the spotlight. “Austria is also ready to enter into an open dialogue with the United States on China,” Kurz said.
The problem for the US may be the lack of EU unity on the subject. ‘As mnr. “If he reaches out to Europe, he expects a strong tremor, not 27 opinions from so many member states,” said De Croo.
Many smaller European countries feel attached to China: they distrust how Beijing may exercise, but find it both too great to ignore and too great to deal with alone. Germany and France – the largest EU powers – have talked about their preference for entering into talks with China rather than forming a bloc against it in the Cold War.
As the EU moves closer to US positions over China in 2020, the lack of unity still allows many European countries to include Huawei in at least parts of their mobile networks, preventing the EU from imposing sanctions on China over human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims . minority.
When China wanted to use a special summit last week to strengthen relations with Central and Eastern European countries, half of the 12 invited national leaders of the EU did not show up to pay tribute to Chinese President Xi Jinping. who offered the opportunity.
When Blinken meets with 27 European foreign ministers via video conference on Monday, he will start testing the waters whether the EU can be a strong US ally for China’s policy.
EU trade chief Dombrovskis told Dombrovskis that pressure from DC was on the way, and was considering blocking slave labor before entering the EU market. Countries, including the US, Canada and the United Kingdom, have taken steps to avoid the importation of such products, following increasingly detailed reports of forced labor in the Xinjiang region of China.
Meanwhile, NATO – which includes 21 EU countries – has quietly expanded its mission to China: Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Secretary General, said the alliance’s strategy should be based on defending democracy against China and Russia’s authoritarian setback against rule – based international order. ”
NATO’s traditional enemy is another source of divisions within the EU and a possible conflict with a Biden government. To the annoyance of the Baltic states, Emmanuel Macron spent his French presidency trying to succeed where Merkel, Barack Obama and others failed – by making Vladimir Putin a security partner for Europe. There is no evidence that it works.
The new Prime Minister of Italy, Mario Draghi, seems determined to follow in Macron’s footsteps: he used his debut speech on Wednesday to say that Italy will try to increase dialogue with Russia, while expressing concern about the violation of fundamental rights in the country.
Draghi’s remarks come as the EU considers hitting Russia with further sanctions. The topic will be on the table of the minister’s meeting of foreign ministers on Monday, just after Blinken ended his talks with ministers.
We will always have Munich
President Biden returns to familiar territory during the Munich Security Conference, with a familiar message for familiar faces: “Without a stable Atlantic alliance, everything falls apart in my opinion.” But what worked in 2009 and 2019 may not be enough in 2021, as democracy is being attacked by all quarters, including at home in the United States.
Biden had to adapt his domestic message and policy to the times, and take a wave of concrete actions to repair the damage he discovered when he took office. Sooner or later he will have to do the same abroad.
Matthew Karnitschnig and Mark Scott contributed to this report.