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Toward a post-Trump America and world order: Part 2
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If anything, a Biden presidency will signal the return of America as a “normal country”.
It will mark the return of a traditional foreign policy. This means that one of the first foreign policy moves President Biden will make is to reassure US allies, particularly in Europe, that he is no Trump, and will exercise a leadership role in America’s many alliances. In contrast with the disruptive instinct of President Trump, Biden will attempt to regain the comfort level and strategic trust of allies. The upshot is that, in contrast with the past four years, we will see a more strategically coherent western world with the US back at the core of it.
A Biden administration will be more committed to a rules-based international order (though policy contradictions will persist), and will reposition the US into its traditional role as a “champion” of democracy, human rights and international law (themes that Trump showed little interest in). That said, despite the long-standing plea of the international community, a Biden administration is not likely to push for Senate ratification of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
It is important to keep in mind that a future president Biden will be forced by circumstances to focus on the herculean task of producing jobs at home. As Gordon Flake of Perth US-Asia Center argues, President Biden will inherit a “weaker and poorer” United States. More than 20 million jobs were lost this year, and there is a recession looming with unemployment reaching 14 percent, the highest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, reversing this jobs avalanche will be the number one validation of the Biden presidency. If Biden fails this, he too might be a one-term president. Much of how Biden will engage the world will be seen from this “jobs at home” prism.
To save the US economy, Biden will likely reduce military spending, which under President Trump reached a historic height of US$725 billion in 2020. This may mean that exotic programs like the Space Force will be halted (it’s hard to justify spending billions on space warfare when 20 million Americans are out of jobs). That said, given the US threat perceptions and strategic challenges, military spending will remain high.
The Biden presidency is also expected to return US active engagement in the climate diplomacy circuit, which will be a great boost to Conference of Parties-26 in Glasgow in November 2021. A Biden administration is also expected to enhance multilateral diplomacy, be hard on Russia and China and place emphasis on arms control, which means it will right away begin negotiations on a new START Treaty with Russia (and perhaps find a way to engage China in it).
In the Middle East, a future president Biden will be less beholden to Israel (compared to Trump) and show greater sensitivity to the Islamic world; will likely return America to the table regarding Iran’s nuclear deal; will handle Saudi Arabia differently than Trump; and will be more favorable over a more normalized place for Qatar in the region. It does not look likely that Biden will make a strong attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
President Biden will not be softer on China. This is because the basic instinct of Washington, DC, establishment is now systematically geared for a long-term strategic rivalry with China. A future president Biden needs to prove that he is tough on China, and that under his watch America will not be surpassed by China.
But Biden is likely to handle China with greater policy sophistication and will be less predisposed to blame China and less confrontational when he needs to be. In any case, the “respectability gap” that was palpably felt between erratic Trump and steady Xi Jinping will decrease much during a Biden presidency.
It would be hasty to assume that a Biden presidency will immediately make America rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The domestic political circumstances in the US do not warrant that as yet. Instead, Biden is likely to begin with “safe” bilateral free trade negotiations, perhaps with Taiwan. Biden will need a year or two to assess the political and diplomatic situation before making a more determined move on the TPP.
It is a safe bet that the Indo-Pacific strategy will endure under the Biden administration. This is because the “Indo-Pacific” is now firmly entrenched in the US strategic psyche.
Outside US alliance systems, India will continue to be a key benefactor of Biden’s Asia policy.
The big question is whether Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy will proactively embrace China or continue to sideline it in this regional architecture.
The other big question in this Indo-Pacific strategy will be how Biden sees Southeast Asia. Under Obama, Southeast Asia occupied a key place in the so-called pivot or rebalancing strategy, which by extension, raised the strategic position of Indonesia in the eyes of US policymakers.
While the policy package may be different, expect the Biden presidency to ramp up the US overall presence (strategic, economic, soft power) vis-a-vis China in the ASEAN region and a more intense competition for diplomatic and political influence in the region.
The aforementioned post-Trump US foreign policy still, of course, awaits president-hopeful Joe Biden’s actual policy pronouncements, which are still forthcoming. These will be clearer after the Democratic Convention, the presidential debates prior to elections and the inauguration in January 2021. Some of these policy predictions are deduced from my conversations with Washington, DC, insiders.
Yes, I know, you think I am getting way ahead of myself.
But the US elections are just four months (one summer season) away — a blink of an eye. The exit of President Trump will have a profoundly strategic impact on world affairs.
As the world scrambles to sketch a complex diplomatic agenda for a COVID-19 and post-pandemic world, they are well advised to start calculating what a post-Trump America and Biden presidency will look like, as that would make a huge difference in how world affairs evolve and how world problems would be solved in the coming five years.
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The writer is founder of Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) and former Indonesian ambassador to the United States. This is final part of the analysis.
