WASHINGTON (AP) – President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to scrap President Donald Trump’s vision of ‘America First’ in favor of ‘diplomacy first’ will depend on whether he can regain the confidence of allies and convince them that Trumpism is just a blip. in the annals of American foreign policy.
It can be a hard sell. From Europe to the Middle East and Asia, Trump alienated the brand from diplomatic friends as well as enemies, leaving Biden with a particularly controversial set of national security issues.
Biden, who said last month that ‘America’s back, ready to lead the world, not back away from it’, could try to be Trump’s opposition on the world stage and some, if not many, of his actions’ predecessor to stop. But Trump’s imprint on America’s place in the world – considered good or bad – will not be easily erased.
U.S. allies are not blind to the large constituency of U.S. voters that supports Trump’s nationalist tendencies and his belief that the United States should stay out of world conflicts. If Biden’s goal is to restore America’s place in the world, he will not only have to win the trust of foreign allies, but also convince voters at home that international diplomacy works better than one-sided hard talks.
Trump has insisted that he is not against multilateralism, but only global institutions that are ineffective. He withdrew from more than half a dozen international agreements, withdrew from various UN groups and talked allies and partners in the trash.
Biden, on the other hand, says global alliances need to be rebuilt to combat climate change, address the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for future epidemics and face the growing threat from China. The national security and foreign policy staff he has appointed so far are campaigners for multilateralism.
His choices for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and head of foreign aid, Samantha Power – all veterans of the Obama administration – underscore his intention to return to a foreign policy space that they say was left by Trump.
“Right now there’s a huge vacuum,” Biden said. “We will have to regain the trust and confidence of a world that has begun to find ways to work around us or without us.”
Biden intends to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and work with the World Health Organization again. He intends to facilitate relations with Europeans and other friends and not to explode NATO members, and he may bring the United States back into the Iran agreement. Yet many Americans will continue to support Trump’s “America First” agenda, especially with the U.S. economy struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, civil strife in American streets over racism, and the absence of civilian political discourse.
“Whether people like it or not, Trump was elected by Americans in 2016,” said Fiona Hill, who worked in the Trump White House National Security Council and is now at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution.
Trump’s election in 2016 and the ten million votes he received in 2020 reflect a very divided nation, she says.
“We have to accept that the 2016 election result was not a fluke,” Hill said.
Steven Blockmans, research director of the Center for European Policy Studies in Belgium, said Europeans should not make themselves think that transatlantic relations will return to what they were before Trump.
“In everything but name, the cry of ‘America First’ is here to stay,” he said. “Biden has promised to prioritize investment in US green energy, child care, education and infrastructure over any new trade agreements. He also called for extensive ‘Buy American’ provisions in federal acquisitions, which have long been irritating in trade relations with the European Union. ”
Each part of the world presents a different challenge for Biden.
CHINA
Fears of China’s quest for world domination began to escalate before Trump took office. Trump decided early on to China’s authoritarian president, Xi Jinping. But after attempts to reach more than one first-phase trade deal failed, President China turned on the heat and repeatedly blamed Beijing for the coronavirus pandemic.
He endorsed the Chinese, and in a speech after speech, top Trump officials warned that China had stolen American technology, carried out cyber-attacks, taken aggressive action in the South China Sea, cracked down on democracy in Hong Kong, and attacked the Muslim Uighurs. being abused in western China.
Republicans and Democrats are increasingly concerned about an increasing economic and geopolitical threat to China, and the concern will not end when Trump leaves office.
NORTH KOREA
The restoration of US relations with Asian allies is instrumental in confronting not only China but also North Korea.
Trump has broken new ground on the nuclear issue with North Korea with his three face-to-face meetings with Kim Jong Un, North Korea. But Trump’s efforts have yielded no agreement to persuade Kim to give up his nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief and security assurances. In fact, North Korea continued to develop its nuclear capabilities.
Biden may have to deal with North Korea sooner rather than later, as experts believe Pyongyang has a history of conducting tests and firing missiles to get Washington’s attention around the US presidential election.
AFGHANISTAN
Nearly 20 years after a US-led US coalition overthrew the Taliban-backed Taliban government, Afghan citizens are still being killed by the thousands. Afghan security forces, at the forefront of the battlefield, continue to count high casualties. Taliban attacks are outside the cities, and the Islamic State group has organized bombs in the capital, Kabul, including one in November at the University of Kabul that killed more than 20 people, mostly students.
The US and the Taliban will sit at the negotiating table in 2018. These talks, led by Trump envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, eventually led to the US and Taliban agreement signed in February 2020, which provided for the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan. .
Trump kept his promise to withdraw American troops from “endless wars,” and Trump cut the troops from 8,600 to 4,500 and then dropped troop levels to 2,500 by the Day of the Inauguration. The United States has pledged to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by May 1, just months after Biden entered service, but it is unclear if he wants to do so.
MIDDLE EAST
Trump has chosen to think outside the box when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and relations with Arab countries.
The Palestinians have rejected the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan, but Trump has enticed two Arab countries – the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – to recognize Israel. This was historic because Arab countries had been saying for decades that they would not recognize Israel until the Palestinian struggle for an independent state was resolved.
Improving ties between Israel and Arab states opposed to Iran helped clinch the agreement. Morocco and Sudan also later recognized Israel.
IRAN
In 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal with Iran, in which world powers agreed to lift sanctions against Tehran if it curbed its nuclear program.
Trump said the deal was unilateral, did not prevent Iran from finally getting a nuclear weapon, and allowed it to receive billions of dollars in frozen assets that the accused used to destabilize terrorists who were destabilizing the Middle East.
Biden says the withdrawal from the agreement was reckless and complains that Iran has now stored more enriched uranium than is allowed under the agreement, which still applies between Iran and Britain, China, Russia, France and Germany.