Happy days in Europe? Not so fast, monsieur

Trump's defeat has raised hopes of a return to the happier days of transatlantic relations, but experts warn against pitching expectations too high

French don’t do restraint in displaying emotions. So, Anne Hidalgo, the fiesty mayor of Paris, let go — tweeting “America is back!” — as she watched US networks declare Joe Biden as their man of the moment and hand him the presidency. Within minutes, bigger beasts of the European establishment — French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) chief Jens Stoltenberg — were popping up across the Continent to congratulate Mr Biden, drawing comparisons with “champagne corks popping on New Year’s Eve”.

To mangle Shakespeare, it seemed they had “come” not so much to praise Mr Biden as bury their metaphorical Caesar, Donald Trump, after nerve-racking four years of being bullied and abused by him. His defeat has raised hopes of a return to the happier days of transatlantic relations, with European Union (EU) foreign relations chief Josep Borrel declaring it as a “great day for the US and Europe”. But experts warn against pitching expectations too high, and have dampened down prospects of a “clean break” with Mr Trump’s legacy. The argument is that under him America changed profoundly and Mr Biden can’t abandon his predecessor’s agenda completely, given that more than 70 million Americans voted for him.

“A bit of a protectionist agenda will remain given US internal politics. Election results show that Trumpism is alive and kicking and it is something that he (Biden) cannot ignore,” said Nathalie Tocci, an Italian international affairs expert. This view has been echoed by other close Washington watchers. “America is changing, what happened [under Trump] is not an accident,” former EU ambassador to Washington David O’Sullivan told Brussels-based European Policy Centre.

But Europeans remain optimistic, citing Mr Biden’s promise to “build back” relations with traditional allies, return to multilateralism, renew commitment to NATO, and re-join the Paris climate accord. Once regarded as the bedrock of the post-World War II international order, the transatlantic alliance is in tatters after Mr Trump’s relentless EU-bashing. According to an analysis by the Paris-based Robert Schuman Foundation, “(the) future of transatlantic relations has never been more uncertain than in the Trump era”.

And this is why

Touting his “America First” policy, Mr Trump went on the rampage, ripping into EU-backed multilateral treaties, threatening to pull out of NATO, and imposing punitive tariffs on US imports from the EU. He branded the EU a “foe”, batted for Brexit, and called Germany a “big problem”, singling out Ms Merkel for opprobrium over her criticism of his policies. He had running battles with European leaders on just about everything: NATO, trade, climate change, the Iran nuclear deal, relations with China, immigration, Brexit. His threat to pull out of NATO, declaring that it had become “obsolete” and accusing Europe of piggybacking on American taxpayers, had the effect of undermining one of the most important pillars of the alliance.

Although Mr Trump was eventually forced to row back, the damage had been done. The EU said it planned to create its own independent European Defence Union to reduce dependence on America as it had lost faith in its capacity to defend its allies.

Another issue Mr Trump used to needle the EU was Brexit. Even as other world leaders carefully avoided getting involved in a bilateral matter between London and Brussels, Mr Trump thumbed his nose at Brussels, advising Theresa May, the then prime minister, to “sue” the EU instead of negotiating with it. Other provocations included making common cause with populist EU-baiting regimes in Eastern Europe such as Poland and Hungary, and launching a trade war against the EU, claiming that “it treats us worse than China”.

In the end, things got so ugly that an exasperated EU leadership gave up any hope of having normal relations with America. “The relations cannot be the same if, on the other side of the Atlantic, there is someone who believes that the European Union was created to damage the US,” declared its foreign policy boss Josep Borrell. Mr Trump’s “careless and destructive rhetoric” and his “unilateralist actions” were blamed for damaging the transatlantic relationship in a survey by Foreign Affairs magazine.

Meanwhile, as mainland Europe is cheering Mr Biden, there are long faces in Britain’s ruling political establishment amid fears that he is likely to punish it for flirting with Mr Trump over Brexit. Mr Biden famously described Boris Johnson as the “physical and emotional clone of Trump” and publicly rebuked him over new Brexit-related legislation, which could jeopardise the US-brokered peace process in Northern Ireland. A man of Irish descent, he has made clear that he wouldn’t countenance any measure that is likely to disturb peace in the region. Mr Johnson will need all his charm to win over Mr Biden. Elsewhere in Europe, they believe that “Joe” is already on their side. Not so fast, Monsieur.

The author is a London-based commentator