Chronic. Joe Biden’s last visit to Europe dates back to February 2019. At the Munich Security Conference, US Vice President Mike Pence chaired, in icy silence, an audience of European officials to whom he urged to withdraw, like the United States, the Iran nuclear deal. Going up to the platform after him, Joe Biden wanted to be reassuring. You will see, promised the former Democratic vice-president, “That too will pass. We will come back ! “
The Europeans lent him only a distracted ear. His soothing speech reminded them too much of a bygone past, them whom the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House had plunged into a real strategic nightmare. First passed through various phases of disbelief, they had ended up integrating the new transatlantic reality: America had let them go and was hardly interested, in Europe, except in a few populist governments.
Joe Biden, however, has kept his promise: he’s back. On January 20, when he takes his place in the Oval Office, he will be the most experienced American president in international relations since George Bush Sr.. Better: view of Europe, the foreign policy team of which he announced the composition, Monday, November 23, has everything of the “dream team”. Tony Blinken, whom he chose to head American diplomacy, grew up in Paris and is familiar with the Old Continent. Faithful among Joe Biden’s stalwarts, he’ll be a sure-fire interlocutor – no frying on the line in prospect. The rest of the team, skilled and diverse, smacks of the return of the centrist establishment.
Unusual feeling of fragility
Miracle? Or mirage? If there are still a few naive people in Europe to believe that this idyllic image bodes well for a transatlantic relationship that has returned to its starting point, we must urgently disabuse them. The intense dialogue that has been taking place for three weeks between European and American experts, thanks to Zoom, on the future of relations between their governments reveals two things: first that this future will be different, and then that it will be a lot. more interesting.
It will be different because the world has changed – and not just the past four years. The major trends which preceded, and partly explained, the arrival of Trump to power have been accentuated: counter-globalization, the assertion of China, the power of technology, the rise of authoritarianism … to which must be added the overwhelming weight consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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