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For most of the world’s diplomats, Joe Biden’s foreign policy slogan “America is Back” is not a metaphor.
On global issues ranging from climate change to non-proliferation and human rights, the United States under the Trump administration had literally gathered their papers and pens and left the boardroom. Biden’s election victory and the choice of committed internationalists to lead the foreign policy team means that there will in fact be someone sitting in what was an empty chair.
“There’s a lot of relief we’re going to have with a much more normal United States,” said Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group. “It’s been symptomatic of US diplomacy over the past two years that other countries have really struggled to get a clear picture of what US policies are sometimes like on issues like Libya or Yemen.
Gowan said one of the many clear winners on the world stage of Biden’s victory was UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who spent four years making efforts to have fun with Donald Trump to prevent the outgoing president to completely withdraw the grip on US involvement in and funding of United Nations agencies.
“Now there’s been a lot of talk that Guterres is getting ready to come up with a lot of big ideas next year on tackling inequality, stepping up the fight against climate change and really trying to put the UN back at the center of the agenda. global debate.
How an all-embracing slogan like “America is Back” is received around the world will inevitably be a Rorschach test for what is perceived to be the “real America” that has been absent for the past four years.
In liberal democracies of Europe, the general hope and expectation of Biden’s language and behavior is that America in the Restoration includes all of the best features of the past – with an added dose of humility.
“America is back” means something very different from what George W. Bush said, or even if Obama said it in context, “said Constanze Stelzenmüller, senior researcher at the Center for United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. . “And that means this is a different type of America – not an America that is primarily rapacious at any cost, but very soberly weighing its options and limits of power.”
The glaring lack of popular American support for foreign support adventurism – which was effectively channeled by Trump – the failures in Libya, Yemen and Syria, and the relative loss of power and prestige over the past four years, suggest as the country returns to the world stage is a chastened America.
“I think Obama was still able to assume that America had almost unlimited power, and therefore had sovereign choices to make about international engagement and how it dealt with its authoritarian rivals,” Stelzenmüller said. . “I think the huge difference with this administration will be a separate understanding of boundaries – domestic and foreign. And that gives allies an entirely new value, and also gives allies a lot of power.
Some leaders and governments were clearly very happy with the America that was evident during the Trump era – nothing more than the Gulf monarchs and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They are now making common cause in trying to block an American return to pre-Trump policies, in particular the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
“Many of these regimes were extremely attached to the Trump administration, for a variety of reasons,” said Khaled Elgindy, senior researcher at the Middle East Institute. “Obviously the position towards Iran is a problem, but also the kind of laissez-faire attitude towards human rights and the rule of law is another reason why I think a lot of these bosses in particular are really going to miss the Donald Trump era.
It is not just the autocracies of the world who fear the slogan “America is back”. For some longtime critics of US foreign policy, the very idea of a golden age in which the next administration can return is an illusion.
For those skeptics, it will all depend on whether Biden’s foreign policy team, who are familiar faces of the Obama era, will aspire to a restoration or a fundamental overhaul.
“I think the big question – given that Biden is basically rebuilding the Obama group – have they learned anything from the previous eight years in office, which hasn’t been a surprising success at many ways? asked Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
“Have they become more realistic about what American foreign policy can accomplish and what American power can do?”
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