Coming off a Donald Trump’s loss Western Leaders thought things would get back to normal with ole’ Joe….
Nope….
No ‘heads up’ on leaving Afghanistan….
No rush to cut back import tariffs…
Travel restrictions…
And a secret deal with Australia for subs that only the non-EU Brits knew about?
Oh?
And a building policy NOT to work with China…
But to confront it?
(They read that a US General might have had too stop Trump from going to war also)
The American President has a bit of selling to do this morning at the United Nations in New York…
Mr. Biden has a chance to reverse all that. But it will be an uphill climb, with allies in the room — not just France — questioning how much in America has changed since Mr. Trump left office. Mr. Biden will argue that a lot has, and insist he is not spinning toward a Cold War with China.
“He will make absolutely clear he is not looking to pursue a future — a new Cold War with any country in the world,’’ Jen Psaki, his press secretary, told reporters on Monday. “And in between a one-day blitz through New York, he is trying to reach President Emmanuel Macron of France, to reaffirm our commitment to working with one of our oldest and closely partners,’’ she added.
The allies recognize, of course, the differences between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. But in conversations over the past two weeks, they say they have new concerns about the United States.
They worry about whether Mr. Biden really has their back, after the French foreign minister compared the submarine deal with Australia to a “knife in the back.” When they hear about booster shots in the United States, they usually wonder what that might do to global supplies of vaccine. And when they look at how the U.S. handles the Australia deal, they wonder whether American national interest has now eclipsed the role of global leader.
Mr. Biden traveled to New York on Monday afternoon, and met with the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres. On Tuesday he is only scheduled to meet one-on-one with a single ally: Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, whose decision to enter the submarine deal — and work on cyber and space technology — casts his country far more firmly in the American camp…..
image….Eduardo Munoz/PoolL/AFP via Getty