“America First”, claimed Donald Trump. “America is back”, now welcomes Joe Biden, his successor to the White House. A slogan borrowed from redemptive optimism, which arouses as many questions as relief, among America’s allies.
For now, the new president is multiplying reassuring messages and gestures to their attention. This was the main objective of his speech, delivered on Friday February 19 at the security conference in Munich, shortly after a meeting of the heads of state and government of the G7, by videoconference. .
This discussion was mainly devoted to the emergency, namely the fight against the pandemic, as well as to the climate. On the other hand, the Munich conference was the place where nuances were expressed between allies, even if all expressed the wish to cultivate the transatlantic relationship and to rebuild an effective multilateralism. Only British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was enthusiastic about America’s return “As leader of the free world. “ Joe Biden did not even mention the United Kingdom in his speech.
The American president did not address the thorny question of NATO’s future either. In his speech, he described the world as a field of rivalry between two models, that defended by autocratic regimes and democracies. “We continue to support the goal of a whole, free and peaceful Europe”, he said. Mr. Biden affirmed the American will to reconnect with Europe and “Regain one’s position of reliable leadership”. However, the Europeans are focusing on the forms that their strategic autonomy should take, the only possible horizon to exist against the backdrop of a Sino-American confrontation.
Geopolitical competition around vaccines
Regarding NATO, Joe Biden contented himself with reiterating his unwavering attachment to one of the pillars of the Alliance, Article 5 on solidarity between members, if one of them was attacked. The American president also praised the Europeans’ budgetary effort in the area of defense and confirmed that he was freezing the withdrawal of the 35,000 American soldiers stationed in Germany.
The accents chosen by Emmanuel Macron in his own intervention differed from the warm transatlantic preaching of his American counterpart. The Head of State insisted on the need to provide doses of vaccines to medical personnel in African countries. He justified it by geopolitical competition in this area, with Russian and Chinese vaccines. But above all he warned, implicitly, against any illusory temptation to return to American order in the liberal camp. More than ever, the French president believes that a regenerated transatlantic link depends on the capacity of Europe to chart its own course, and to assert itself on the security level.
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