Unlike Donald Trump, who focused the country’s resources on “America First”, Joe Biden’s agenda looks like it will be dedicated to pandering to international powers, or at least so assures one of his recent campaign advisors.
Democrat Joe Biden is going to be the most pro-European president in the history of the United States, said Thursday to EFE the former adviser to the president’s electoral campaign, Spaniard Juan Verde.
Verde, born in 1971 in Telde, Gran Canaria, who is currently an adviser to the Democratic Party and previously served Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe and Eurasia of the Department of Commerce in the Barack Obama Administration (2009-2017), predicted that Biden will open a new stage in the ties between the United States and the European Union (EU).
“I categorically believe that Biden is going to be the most pro-European president in the history of the U.S. What am I basing this on? First, on his record as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the 40 years he was in the Senate, his deep knowledge of the European idiosyncrasy, he knows European political actors, European economic actors,” he stressed.
To this factor are added, according to Verde, the members of Biden’s team, among them his picks to head the Foreign Affairs portfolio, Antony Blinken, and the National Security portfolio, Jake Sullivan, all “pro-European.”
Relations with Europe
And the fact is that “in view of the new world panorama that is beginning to emerge, with two great centers of power -the United States and China-, where there is a common front and a common threat for Europeans, which is Russia; where we are not facing a threat, but we are facing emerging economies, such as Russia, India and Brazil, I believe that the key to foreign policy is the strengthening of the transatlantic relationship,” he said.
In his opinion, there may be opportunities for collaboration on all fronts, although he highlighted sustainability and new technologies.
The rapprochement with Europe will represent a change of policy with respect to the administration of Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, who distanced himself from traditional allies.
In fact, as soon as he was sworn in on Wednesday, the Democrat wanted to set a change of tone from the outset and published a battery of 17 executive orders to revoke measures adopted by the previous president, which provide an idea of what the first 100 days of Biden’s term will be like.
The G20 in Washington
“We can expect a G20 meeting here in Washington relatively soon, the idea is that Biden has said is to reassure and confirm to the international community and allies that there is a new direction for the United States, that we believe in multilateralism again.”
“And the idea of that meeting that is going to be created,” he continued, “is a little bit about how to strengthen democracy and how to promote sustainability and the fight against climate change. These are the three legs of that great world summit that is going to take place.”
In parallel, apart from fighting the pandemic and economic recovery within the country, Biden faces the challenge of uniting a very divided and deeply polarized America.
In this sense, Verde stated that his contacts within the Democratic Party insist that the same mistake should not be made as during the Obama Administration, with a progressive majority in Congress and the Senate, and which the former president himself acknowledged in his memoirs, when he saw that much time was wasted trying to reach consensus with the Republicans instead of acting quickly and forcefully. In a way, this establishes that the opinion of Republicans for the new direction of the country will be completely disregarded, the Democrats have a majority in both houses and intend to use it to implement a radical leftist agenda.
Will the United States no longer be at the top of the Executive’s list of priorities?
The Biden Administration has already announced that it will return to the Paris Agreement, and also to the WHO, despite reports published in newspapers such as The New York Times stating that the health organization collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party to hide the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic.
At the same time, the new president is also in favor of returning to the nuclear deal with Iran through which the Obama Administration gave it access to millions of dollars that it used to finance wars in the region. And now one of his top advisors claims that Biden will be the most “Europeanist president in history”.
Will Biden govern to further U.S. interests, or to serve the purposes of third nations?
