Opinion | Why Joe Biden will struggle to rebuild the decaying transatlantic alliance to counter China

Name: ‘Welcome back America’: world leaders react to Joe Biden’s victory in US elections
Uploaded: 2020-12-03T19:45:06.000Z
Duration: 4 min 35 s
Description: ‘Welcome back America’: world leaders react to Joe Biden’s victory in US elections

The damage done to transatlantic ties under Trump can’t be easily fixed. The US-led alliance could be strengthened if America’s allies also confront China – but almost all enjoy strong economic ties with Beijing

Reading Time:4 minutes

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Zhou Bo

Published: 3:45am, 4 Dec 2020Updated: 5:12am, 4 Dec 2020

The countries which could not wait to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the presidency are America’s allies. This should be no surprise. In the past four years, Donald Trump’s “America first” policy and his alarming words to Nato have unnerved them all. They could only rejoice to embrace a man who said: “We’re going to be back in the game. It’s not America alone.”

According to the Financial Times, the European Union has recently drafted a plan to call on the United States to seize a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to form a new global alliance, burying the tensions of the Trump era and meeting the “strategic challenge” presented by China.

This is probably easier said than done. The damage done to transatlantic ties is not a hairline crack that can be easily filled. Trump is the rare US president who called the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation “obsolete”, but he is certainly not the first one who fretted that Europe had been getting a free ride on the US security umbrella for too long.

The only difference is that his relentless ally-bashing, however unbecoming of a president, has worked. Now, eight Nato countries – compared to four by the end of the Obama administration – are meeting the target of spending 2 per cent of their gross domestic product on defence. It remains to be seen if a “good man” like Biden, as George W. Bush has called him, could do the same.

To some extent, the success of transatlantic relations rests on America’s willingness to give its allies a free ride. When the Soviet threat collapsed, Western solidarity started to fray. Although America and Europe still share some common goals, they are of a different order of urgency and seriousness. When it comes to American entrenchment, Europe is no longer a priority.

04:35

‘Welcome back America’: world leaders react to Joe Biden’s victory in US elections

And the more the allies pay their dues, the quicker the US might shake off its responsibilities and withdraw from Europe.

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