What difference will it make?
Americans are voting this year mainly on domestic issues: Covid-19 response, the economy, healthcare, racism, as well as social/cultural issues like abortion and religion. The differences on those issues between candidates Biden and Trump are gigantic. The rest of the world is more interested in how the outcome will affect them. Here are the clear differences and similarities on major national security and foreign policy issues:
- NATO and other allies: Trump’s America First policies led to neglect and even disdain for America’s traditional allies in Europe and the Asia Pacific. Most of them will welcome a Biden victory, if only because they want to be consulted and for some because they disagree with the direction Trump has taken. The United Kingdom, if it remains united, might be an exception to this rule, as Prime Minister Johnson has shared Trump’s hostility towards the European Union. The ethnic nationalist leaders of Hungary and Poland will also regret a Biden victory, but none of those countries counts as heavily within Europe as France and Germany, which are fed up with Trump.
- Russia: While the Trump Administration has been vigorous in imposing sanctions and providing lethal assistance to Ukraine against Russian aggression, the President himself has been soft on Vladimir Putin, Russian interference in US elections, and Russian targeting of US troops in Afghanistan. This mixed signaling will end with Biden, who will try to revive arms control agreements with Moscow but at the same time push back against Russian influence within the US, in Europe, and in the Middle East.
- China: Trump has conducted a notably erratic policy towards China, initially praising President Xi, even for his response to Covid-19, then turning in the other direction and blaming the Chinese for the virus. Trump has lost the tariff war with Beijing, which is failing even to implement the first stage agreement to import more US products. The Chinese won’t be happy to see a more competent and traditional American president who pursues both competition and cooperation, without erratic swings: competition where interests do not overlap, cooperation where they do.
- North Korea: Kim Jong-un has outmaneuvered Trump and continues his buildup of nuclear and missile capabilities, which are more threatening to the US and its allies than four years ago. Biden may not be able to do much about that, but he will certainly want to consult more fully with South Korea and Japan on how to respond.
- Iran: Biden and Trump share the goal of negotiating an expanded and prolonged nuclear agreement. The difference is that Trump has tried to get Tehran back to the negotiating table entirely with “maximum pressure” sticks (expansive economic sanctions and threats of military action), while Biden is prepared to offer at least some carrots in the form of sanctions relief. It is not clear that Tehran will be more responsive to Biden, but certainly Trump’s approach has failed for four years and can’t be expected to succeed. Any change in direction in Tehran will be after its June presidential election.
- The Arab Gulf: Trump made a point of befriending the autocrats of the Gulf, in particular Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Biden won’t be sword-dancing in Riyadh on his first trip abroad and will pressure the Saudis and Emiratis to end the war in Yemen while supporting the effort to get more Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel. Trump helped OPEC+ (that’s OPEC plus Mexico and Russia as well as some smaller producers) to end the oil price war this spring. I doubt you’ll find Biden working to jack up world oil prices.
- Israel/Palestine: Here the candidates differ not only on methods but also on goals. Trump has sought to make a two-state solution impossible. Biden will support a negotiated two-state outcome, but he is unlikely to reverse Trump’s move of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Jared Kushner’s peace plan will however be shredded, as it allowed annexation of a large part of the West Bank and would have made a Palestinian state impossible. Biden will be prepared to pressure Israel to make a Palestinian state possible.
- US troops abroad: I would expect Biden to continue the effort to negotiate a decent exit for US troops from Afghanistan that Zal Khalilzad has been engaged in. He will likely also want a decent, negotiated exit for US troops from Syria and Iraq as well as reductions in the rest of the Middle East. He may reverse Trump’s decision to move some US troops from Germany, but there too he will want reductions.
- Trade and investment: Biden may look for a way of returning the US to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has gone ahead without Washington. He might also try to revive the idea of freer trade and investment between the US and EU. But if he does these things, he will need to sell them on the basis of strong labor and environmental standards applied in partner countries.
- Climate change: Biden will rejoin the Paris Climate Change Agreement that Trump withdrew from and back strong domestic legislation to reduce US carbon emissions.
Peacefare readers in the Balkans will want to know what difference Biden will make there. While the region doesn’t rate with the ten issues cited above, Biden will restore the traditional US policy: support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the existing states, including in particular Kosovo as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. He will also seek full normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, including mutual recognition and exchange of ambassadors as well as UN membership for Kosovo. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, he could consider still another effort to reform the Dayton constitution for the country, which has hampered its functionality.
In other regions, things are less clear, but Biden would certainly pay more positive attention to Africa and to Latin America, the former because of its strong economic growth potential and the latter to reduce incentives for immigration. Biden might return to President Obama’s softer line on Cuba and would likely seek to continue the Trump effort to court India, but with greater attention to its current government’s domestic abuses against Muslims and other minorities. Neither Biden or Trump will want to see President Maduro continue to rule Venezuela.
So, yes, the election of Biden will make a big difference outside the United States as well as inside. The Iranian band above has got it right.
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