Tribune. Antony Blinken is one of the few advisers to Joe Biden to give interviews to the American press these days. He has spoken in recent weeks in particular about transatlantic relations. It was undoubtedly a question of reassuring the American business community about the follow-up that a possible Democratic administration would give to the trade war launched by Donald Trump, but also of strengthening the positions of the moderate current within the Democratic Party. Indeed, the foreign policy choices of a future President Biden remain disputed.
In the event of a Democratic victory in the presidential election of November 3, the moderate current around Joe Biden would initiate an immediate return to traditional diplomacy as practiced by the elites in Washington, and therefore to multilateralism: the United States would return to the Paris climate agreement ” since the first day “ and attempt to resuscitate the nuclear deal with Iran. After Trump’s procrastination vis-à-vis Russia, we would see the return to Washington of bipartisan hostility vis-à-vis Putin, while resuming negotiations on the extension of the New Start bilateral disarmament agreements.
This current would also have a demanding position on human rights all over the world. Finally, candidate Biden’s main advisers on foreign policy have close links with Europe: Antony Blinken is French-speaking and Francophile, Julie Smith has a long experience of Germany, Jake Sullivan is a former beneficiary of the Rhodes scholarship. at the University of Oxford, England. They would all be keen to celebrate transatlantic friendship and the importance of NATO.
Different positioning
But the party’s left, represented by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the Democratic spring primaries, maintains a different stance on foreign policy. For her, America’s moral struggle in the world should not be so much about the defense of democracy as that of the poorest citizens. Rather than freedom, it is equality that matters to him. In addition, the United States must beware of initiating military interventions which, however well-intentioned, most often fall in their eyes to imperialism. Unified since April to the candidacy of Biden, this radical current wanted to make its views heard. Unlike Hillary Clinton ignoring Bernie Sanders in 2016, Joe Biden has been more open, listening to the opinions of his former rivals, notably carried by Sanders’ foreign policy adviser Matt Duss.
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