It’s not over yet, but with President Donald Trump playing defence on what the New York Times called “a shrinking, if still viable, battleground map”, there’s more reason to believe that the world is looking at a Joe Biden presidency for the next four years.
In any case, I seek to look broadly (and cursorily) at how different the United States policy would, or might, be in case Biden wins the White House.
In a way then this is more about analysing whether the perception that Biden would play differently on the foreign policy turf is correct. This question is important more because of the four years of Trump’s presidency and his abrasive, non-institutional style of doing things than because of anything new that Biden could possibly bring to the table.
Firstly, Biden is no Bernie Sanders, which is one of the reasons it’s not Sanders but Biden contesting against Trump. Washington DC does not like maverick approaches, whether they take the expression of Trump’s crudeness or Sander’s leftward progressiveness.
Biden fits the bill. He intends to restore America’s place in the world. In an article for the March-April issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Biden lamented that “the credibility and influence of the United States in the world have diminished since President Barack Obama and I left office on January 20, 2017.” His solution: “As president, I will take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances, protect the United States’ economic future, and once more have America lead the world.” (italics added)
This synchs perfectly with what historian Andrew Bacevich, a former US Army colonel, wrote in October this year: “So if you liked U.S. national security policy before Trump mucked things up, then Biden is probably your kind of guy. Install him in the Oval Office and the mindless pursuit of ‘dominance in the name of internationalism’ will resume. And the United States will revert to the policies that prevailed during the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama — policies, we should note, that paved the way for Donald Trump to win the White House.”
What we will witness is going back to the old map: America’s leadership role; mending fences with allies; conducting foreign policy and trade on the basis of neoliberal policies — essentially, getting the US out of its Trumpian mode and putting it back in the centre of global affairs.
Here are Biden’s words on what he would do: “The Biden foreign policy agenda will place the United States back at the head of the table, in a position to work with its allies and partners to mobilize collective action on global threats. The world does not organize itself. For 70 years, the United States, under Democratic and Republican presidents, played a leading role in writing the rules, forging the agreements, and animating the institutions that guide relations among nations and advance collective security and prosperity — until Trump.”
So, Biden will most certainly end the tariff war declared by Trump against the allies; he will go back to the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organisation and the Trans Pacific Partnership known since Trump walked out of it as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It’s very unlikely that he could rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action but he could support it from outside and loosen the sanctions regime against Iran to let other JCPOA partners help address Iran’s economic woes in exchange for Iran sticking to and delivering on the original JCPOA benchmarks.
On China, Biden will likely take a more nuanced approach. Responding to my question about whether under Biden the US approach to China would improve from an adversary to a strategic rival with whom the US could find some common ground, Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of China Market Research Group, said that Biden would work with allies to deal with China and would try to find common ground with China and improve trade. “But he is no friend of China’s and won’t be able or willing to use political capital to reduce tariffs too much or too fast.”
This is more or less in line with Biden’s now stated approach on China: “The United States does need to get tough with China. If China has its way, it will keep robbing the United States and American companies of their technology and intellectual property. It will also keep using subsidies to give its state-owned enterprises an unfair advantage — and a leg up on dominating the technologies and industries of the future. The most effective way to meet that challenge is to build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge, such as climate change, nonproliferation, and global health security.”
What is unclear is whether Biden will remove the nearly $400 billion tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese goods. Biden is on record as having called Trump’s use of tariffs “self-defeating.” It is unlikely, as Rein said to me, that China would take kindly to the neoliberal US approach under Biden to questions about China’s political system or how it deals with its own peoples. But that is precisely the kind of approach Biden will follow as he sets about “reimagining” the United States because, to use Simon Tisdall’s phrase, “as a child of the cold war it is hardwired into him”.
This is also where the blob and the national security apparatus will come in, and they have a conflictual view on China and Beijing’s approach to its near-abroad. All said, however, Trump’s policy towards China sailed close to Washington’s traditional approach and it is safe to propose that we will not see any major diversion under Biden.
In South and West Asia too, Biden is unlikely to depart much from Trump’s approach. It will continue with the India policy that was begun by President Bill Clinton and continued through the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. The strategic partnership with India will continue both because of India’s market potential for US companies and investors and as a counter to China’s perceived expansion. Just a week before the US poll, India and the US had their third 2+2 Ministerial and India signed the fourth foundational agreement with the US. Those agreements lock India in as a junior strategic partner of the US according to the latter’s threat matrix in the Indian Ocean Region. That’s not something the Biden administration could walk back from. In other words, Pakistan will have to continue to weigh its options in light of India’s closeness to the US.
In Afghanistan, Biden is not likely to upset the delicate balance of the US agreement with the Taliban or any further withdrawal of the US forces. However, the new administration does open space for the US military and intelligence elements to reassert themselves and argue against a precipitous withdrawal, especially if the intra-Afghan talks remain deadlocked and there is no reduction in violence.
In case of negative developments in Afghanistan, Pakistan could once again face US pressure. That would be in keeping with the US approach during the Obama administration when Biden was the vice president.
In sum, let me quote from Bacevich: “Nothing if not a creature of the establishment, Biden himself will conform to its requirements. For proof, look no further than his vote in favor of invading Iraq in 2003. (No isolationist he.) Count on a Biden administration, therefore, to perpetuate the entire obsolete retinue of standard practices.”
The writer is a former News Editor of The Friday Times and reluctantly tweets @ejazhaider
In any case, I seek to look broadly (and cursorily) at how different the United States policy would, or might, be in case Biden wins the White House.
In a way then this is more about analysing whether the perception that Biden would play differently on the foreign policy turf is correct. This question is important more because of the four years of Trump’s presidency and his abrasive, non-institutional style of doing things than because of anything new that Biden could possibly bring to the table.
Firstly, Biden is no Bernie Sanders, which is one of the reasons it’s not Sanders but Biden contesting against Trump. Washington DC does not like maverick approaches, whether they take the expression of Trump’s crudeness or Sander’s leftward progressiveness.
Biden fits the bill. He intends to restore America’s place in the world. In an article for the March-April issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, Biden lamented that “the credibility and influence of the United States in the world have diminished since President Barack Obama and I left office on January 20, 2017.” His solution: “As president, I will take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances, protect the United States’ economic future, and once more have America lead the world.” (italics added)
This synchs perfectly with what historian Andrew Bacevich, a former US Army colonel, wrote in October this year: “So if you liked U.S. national security policy before Trump mucked things up, then Biden is probably your kind of guy. Install him in the Oval Office and the mindless pursuit of ‘dominance in the name of internationalism’ will resume. And the United States will revert to the policies that prevailed during the presidencies of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama — policies, we should note, that paved the way for Donald Trump to win the White House.”
What we will witness is going back to the old map: America’s leadership role; mending fences with allies; conducting foreign policy and trade on the basis of neoliberal policies — essentially, getting the US out of its Trumpian mode and putting it back in the centre of global affairs.
Here are Biden’s words on what he would do: “The Biden foreign policy agenda will place the United States back at the head of the table, in a position to work with its allies and partners to mobilize collective action on global threats. The world does not organize itself. For 70 years, the United States, under Democratic and Republican presidents, played a leading role in writing the rules, forging the agreements, and animating the institutions that guide relations among nations and advance collective security and prosperity — until Trump.”
So, Biden will most certainly end the tariff war declared by Trump against the allies; he will go back to the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organisation and the Trans Pacific Partnership known since Trump walked out of it as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It’s very unlikely that he could rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action but he could support it from outside and loosen the sanctions regime against Iran to let other JCPOA partners help address Iran’s economic woes in exchange for Iran sticking to and delivering on the original JCPOA benchmarks.
On China, Biden will likely take a more nuanced approach. Responding to my question about whether under Biden the US approach to China would improve from an adversary to a strategic rival with whom the US could find some common ground, Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of China Market Research Group, said that Biden would work with allies to deal with China and would try to find common ground with China and improve trade. “But he is no friend of China’s and won’t be able or willing to use political capital to reduce tariffs too much or too fast.”
This is more or less in line with Biden’s now stated approach on China: “The United States does need to get tough with China. If China has its way, it will keep robbing the United States and American companies of their technology and intellectual property. It will also keep using subsidies to give its state-owned enterprises an unfair advantage — and a leg up on dominating the technologies and industries of the future. The most effective way to meet that challenge is to build a united front of U.S. allies and partners to confront China’s abusive behaviors and human rights violations, even as we seek to cooperate with Beijing on issues where our interests converge, such as climate change, nonproliferation, and global health security.”
What is unclear is whether Biden will remove the nearly $400 billion tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese goods. Biden is on record as having called Trump’s use of tariffs “self-defeating.” It is unlikely, as Rein said to me, that China would take kindly to the neoliberal US approach under Biden to questions about China’s political system or how it deals with its own peoples. But that is precisely the kind of approach Biden will follow as he sets about “reimagining” the United States because, to use Simon Tisdall’s phrase, “as a child of the cold war it is hardwired into him”.
This is also where the blob and the national security apparatus will come in, and they have a conflictual view on China and Beijing’s approach to its near-abroad. All said, however, Trump’s policy towards China sailed close to Washington’s traditional approach and it is safe to propose that we will not see any major diversion under Biden.
In South and West Asia too, Biden is unlikely to depart much from Trump’s approach. It will continue with the India policy that was begun by President Bill Clinton and continued through the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations. The strategic partnership with India will continue both because of India’s market potential for US companies and investors and as a counter to China’s perceived expansion. Just a week before the US poll, India and the US had their third 2+2 Ministerial and India signed the fourth foundational agreement with the US. Those agreements lock India in as a junior strategic partner of the US according to the latter’s threat matrix in the Indian Ocean Region. That’s not something the Biden administration could walk back from. In other words, Pakistan will have to continue to weigh its options in light of India’s closeness to the US.
In Afghanistan, Biden is not likely to upset the delicate balance of the US agreement with the Taliban or any further withdrawal of the US forces. However, the new administration does open space for the US military and intelligence elements to reassert themselves and argue against a precipitous withdrawal, especially if the intra-Afghan talks remain deadlocked and there is no reduction in violence.
In case of negative developments in Afghanistan, Pakistan could once again face US pressure. That would be in keeping with the US approach during the Obama administration when Biden was the vice president.
In sum, let me quote from Bacevich: “Nothing if not a creature of the establishment, Biden himself will conform to its requirements. For proof, look no further than his vote in favor of invading Iraq in 2003. (No isolationist he.) Count on a Biden administration, therefore, to perpetuate the entire obsolete retinue of standard practices.”
The writer is a former News Editor of The Friday Times and reluctantly tweets @ejazhaider