Joe Biden isn’t the president the EU thinks he is

For four years, president Donald Trump radicalised international relations. There was a shift towards the nation state and unilateralism, beginning with the United States. He viewed intergovernmental organisations like the WHO or the World Trade Organization with acute scepticism thanks to what he saw as their bureaucratic sloth and partisanship. His perception of the European Union and Nato was little better; the first he perceived as an unfair competitor; the second a free-loading bureaucracy. So it came as no surprise that the EU could barely contain its joy at Joe Biden’s election, even if certain eastern member states were reticent. However, the EU will be disappointed if it believes president-elect Biden’s foreign policy will align with its own. In reality, the process will see Biden’s alignment with much of Trump’s policies and the EU following Biden’s.

Personality notwithstanding, Donald Trump achieved a great deal in international affairs. He dared forcefully, often recklessly, to implement what professional politicians and diplomats over many years had recoiled from doing.