The U.S. Presidential election ended Tuesday, November 03, 2020, bringing out new 46th U.S. President the Democratic candidate Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. What we could expect with the new US President on US policies is a question that we will try to answer successfully in this analysis.
Joe Biden
First of all, it should be noted that Joe Biden and always on the basis of his political course to date is a centrist politician, who has great respect to the institutions of his country and he has proved until today that he is a consensus builder.
by Thanos S. Chonthrogiannis
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The President of USA Joe Biden is not a revolutionary. The increases in his tax rises that he had promised during the elections on firms and the wealthy individuals is expected to be significant, but not punitive.
One of his priorities will be to seek and implement the way to rebuild America’s decrepit infrastructure, give more attention and of course more government spending to healthcare and education allowing on parallel more immigration in the country.
He promised before the elections that his new climate-change policy will focus and direct more investments in R&D and job-boosting technology.
Joe Biden is an excellent and competent administrator, and he has a deep belief in process. He is also a good listener and he asks when he needs the advices of the experts. He is more purposeful as a politician.
Joe Biden represents all those values that originally mad USA an inspiration for the rest of the world.
China
US President Joe Biden (2020-2024) and with regard to the main US policy towards China may not change from that implemented by former US President Donald Trump, but it will simply correct individual policies and especially mistakes made by the Trump Presidency (2016-2020) so that US policies are more effective.
The main mistake of President Donald Trump was that he tried to limit China’s huge trade surplus with the US, with a trade war while also starting a trade war with the EU.
We believe that US President Joe Biden (2020-2024) will end the trade war with the EU and since only with a common EU-US “step” can there be results in US competition with China.
In addition, Presidency of Joe Biden will place greater emphasis on US alliances in Asia such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, etc.
EU
Joe Biden believes in NATO as an institution and he will try to revitalize that organisation if and only if European allies and also NATO members accept that it is in their interest to increase their defense spending to 2% of their GDP per year.
It is certain that Joe Biden will not force the US to bear the costs of Europeans to stop the restriction of the US military presence in Europe.
In this case we are highly likely to see Germany’s refusal and given that this EU member country maintains annual defence spending < 1,5% of its annual GDP.
The Europeans’ response to Joe Biden’s attempt to revive NATO will have to move on two axes to be positive and successful.
1. All NATO allied member countries must increase their annual defence spending to more than 2% of their GDP per year, so that the US can achieve further NATO tightening.
2. Europeans should take greater geopolitical and military initiatives in the wider EU periphery-region so that the US can focus with even greater forces towards the Pacific-Indian Ocean field which is of prime interest to them.
Otherwise, the US will be disappointed but this will mean that Germany-France has pre-decided that for their European security it is more important to consult with Russia within a European security framework involving Russia than the US presence in Europe.
In addition, strong friction between the US and the EU is expected as the US is disturbed by Germany’s extremely high trade surplus vis-à-vis the US. Germany has the comparative advantage and will hardly accept any type of settlement.
If this is combined with Germany’s refusal to increase its annual defence spending within NATO and refusing to take risks on the EU periphery then it is very likely that these frictions will be maximized given that Joe Biden will not accept Germany’s position.
Another area of serious friction expected between the US and the EU is the taxation of US multinational digital technology in the EU. The EU is seeking tax reform within the OECD that will also bind the US.
Joe Biden is in favour of taxing digital technology giants but to come to terms with the EU he will use this “paper” to commit Germany to increasing its annual defence spending and reducing the German trade surplus between Germany and US.
Russia
Democrat Joe Biden is expected to be more decisive towards Russia and always in relation to President Trump’s actions against Russia. This is due to Joe Biden’s dislike of authoritarian leaders like Putin and Erdogan because his approach to international politics is based more on institutional principles.
In this case, the potential problem may also occur in NATO, where Germany and France will most likely refuse to increase its annual NATO defence spending because they will have pre-agreed with Russia.
Germany insists on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with which it will procure Russian natural gas, further increasing its energy and economic dependence on Russia and always at the expense of the interests of the US but also at the expense of the strategic interests of other EU member countries such as Poland and Ukraine (Non-EU member country), which have bad memories of their occupation of the former USSR but also of Russian chauvinism in general.
On the other hand, new US President Joe Biden may have to back down on some of his principles towards Russia, given that the EU will push towards the EU-Russia approach so that there are appropriate incentives for Russia not to cling to China due to energy and economic issues.
The world and the USA
The dawn of 48th US Presidency finds US policy continuing its shift – a change initiated under President Barack Obama and continued under President Donald Trump – towards Asia, China, and the Pacific-Indian Ocean in general.
It is certain that will continue both the gradual withdrawal of US forces from dangerous areas of strategic importance on the planet and the relative deterioration of the US relationship with the EU.
China is now showing mighty, the EU has been weakened by Brexit. The gradual withdrawal of the US has created power vacuums filled by other powers such as Russia, Iran, and Turkey.
