Joe Biden faces European ally problem

Alliances are the keystone of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda. Whether it’s taking on China, curbing the coronavirus pandemic or tackling climate change, Biden has repeatedly stressed the critical importance of working with allies to tackle major global challenges.

But the problem with keystones is that if they collapse, the rest of the structure falls with them. And less than a week after Biden’s presidency began, the edifice begins to shake. Indeed, on a number of important issues, from China to Venezuela to trade, the United States and its closest European allies are not in sync.

Last December, the European Union signed a long-promised investment deal with China despite public concerns from Biden’s new national security adviser. Jake sullivan. The worry now is that China will not only tighten its economic ties with the US transatlantic allies, but will also use this new access to steal intellectual property from European industries.

This week, the EU as a bloc has downgraded its support for Juan Guaidó, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition.The European nations and the United States have considered the country’s acting president since 2019. Now the The EU says Guaidó is a “privileged interlocutor”, potentially revealing a gap in the transatlantic strategy to topple the nation’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro.

Biden also signed his “Buy American” executive order on Monday to ensure that the US government purchases “whenever possible” items “that will help American businesses compete in strategic industries and help American workers prosper. Experts fear that European governments will see the move as a continuation of the protectionist economic policies of former President Trump.

No government is ever perfectly aligned, and divisions between the United States and European countries have existed for decades. But early signs are that Biden can’t just reflexively rely on European support, making getting longtime allies on his side a much higher priority.

“Europeans don’t want to follow the United States” in whatever they want to do, said Erik Brattberg, director of the Europe program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. “Just because Biden is nice and he’s not Trump doesn’t change the math.”

U.S.-Chinese investment deal poses headaches for Biden

At the very end of 2020, the EU and China reached a long-promised investment deal. While details remain meager, the main thrust of the deal is that European bloc countries will have better access to the Chinese market and see their companies treated more fairly in China, while Beijing will make commitments on issues ranging from use of forced labor. the practice of forcing tech companies to hand over valuable trade secrets in order to gain access to the Chinese market.

Experts say the deal made sense to the EU. After all, its companies would now have better access to the world’s largest market, potentially boosting the continent’s economy for decades to come.

But analysts also note that the downsides may outweigh the pros. Beijing, they suspect, likely accepted the deal in order to prevent a Biden-led transatlantic effort to pressure China over its economic and trade practices.

Xinhua / Ding Lin via Getty Images

The new administration seems to agree. SullivanBiden’s senior national security aide expressed concern about the deal just days before it was finalized. “The Biden-Harris administration would welcome early consultations with our European partners on our common concerns about China’s economic practices,” he tweeted on Dec. 21. This statement was not a simple “don’t do this” statement, but it was not a clear “we welcome this deal” either.

It will be difficult to get the EU to change course. He just made the deal and the bloc does not have a single agency with which the United States can share intelligence on China’s objectives. That means Biden staff have to go country-by-country to explain what they know about Beijing’s real economic goals and the alleged security threats Chinese tech companies pose.

“In many ways Trump’s policies were right, but Europeans didn’t like rhetoric,” said Ryan Tully, who served as senior director for Europe at Trump’s National Security Council. “Now you see the right rhetoric, but I’m afraid the right policies are going backwards.”

If Biden hoped his presence – or Trump’s absence – would automatically mean closer US-EU ties on Chinese policy, he would have to think again. “Biden’s team must recognize that they must engage Europe in creating a common strategy against China,” Brattberg told me, and not just to impose their own strategy on Europe.

US and EU see their problem in Venezuela differently

In early 2019, the United States assembled a global coalition of more than 50 countries to recognize Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

They argued that the presidential election in May 2018 was rigged to give Maduro a second six-year term and that under the Venezuelan constitution, Guaidó, as head of the National Assembly (the body legislature), was the legitimate – albeit temporary – ruler of the country.

The EU was a major member of this global coalition, but on Monday it downgraded its view of Guaidó’s leadership. The bloc now sees him as a “privileged interlocutor” – that is, a key leader with whom the EU will continue to engage – but not the country’s interim president.

The reason for the change may be simple: Venezuela just held elections to the National Assembly last year, in which Guaidó and his cohort refused to participate, alleging that the vote was rigged against them. As a result, Guaidó is no longer the head of the legislature and therefore cannot be considered constitutionally as the nation’s interim president. However, the bloc reiterated “its support for all those working for a democratic future for Venezuela” in its statement on Tuesday.

Leonardo Fernandez Viloria / Getty Images

Even so, this position means that the US and the EU currently see Guaidó differently. During his confirmation hearing as secretary of state last week, Antony Blinken said the Biden administration would continue to view Guaidó as the rightful ruler of Venezuela. (Blinken was confirmed for the post on Tuesday.)

What this means for the future of US and EU policy toward Venezuela is unclear. Laura Gamboa, assistant professor at the University of Utah, said that Guaidó’s different view of status “clearly weakens America’s ability to make the effort appear more multilateral,” even though Washington and Brussels share the same goal of driving Maduro out of power.

But Dorothy Kronick of the University of Pennsylvania told me that maybe the EU has just done Biden a favor. By downplaying Guaidó’s importance, Europeans gave Americans more space to support other democratic groups in Venezuela and not rely solely on Guaidó to depose the dictator. “This EU declaration in no way amounts to a commitment to restore democracy in Venezuela,” she said. “It’s about finding the most successful and effective strategy.”

Still, it’s easy to question whether the US and the EU are on the same page regarding Venezuela is an issue for the Biden administration to resolve.

Biden’s ‘Buy American’ pledge will anger Europe

The Obama administration sought to sign a trade deal with Europe known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which would make it easier to sell American goods in Europe and vice versa. The two sides failed to come to an agreement, however, and further talks died after Trump became president.

Some in Europe might have hoped that Biden, who was Obama’s No.2 in the TTIP negotiations, would rekindle the push for free trade across the Atlantic. Instead, they were left behind as Biden signed a “Buy American” executive order on Monday to prioritize U.S. federal government purchases of items made in the United States over those made in the United States. foreign.

Immediately, the UK-based Financial Times reported that “major US trading partners and strategic allies, including Canada and a number of European countries, have long complained that the purchase of measures Americans was a protectionist attempt to exclude their multinationals from the American economy.

Brattberg, the Europe Program Manager at Carnegie Endowment, noted the same in our conversation. “The Europeans are a little worried that protectionist policies will continue under Biden,” he told me.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images

This could be a growing problem. Biden’s team has vowed to pursue a foreign policy that strengthens the American working class, and making sure the government helps American businesses thrive is one way to achieve that. But too much focus on “Buy American” will only irritate European allies who have long waited to compete fairly in the US market against local businesses.

Economic tensions between the United States and Europe are already strong enough. The Trump administration has imposed billions in tariffs on European products, and the US and EU recently entered into a spiteful trade dispute over subsidies to their major airlines. If there was a time to calm nerves about the state of transatlantic trade relations, it would be now – and “Buy American” appears to be doing the opposite.

None of this is to say that Biden is seriously jeopardizing the relationship between the United States and the EU. It already looks like the continent’s leaders are happier to see him in the Oval Office than Trump. But it’s just not clear that Biden has the close bond he hoped to form – which proves a big foreign policy problem for his first presidency.