Change in US foreign policy towards Europe?

With Biden’s withdrawal and the nomination of his Vice President Kamala Harris, the race for the American presidency is open again – to the relief of many Europeans who worry that a renewed Trump presidency could significantly damage the transatlantic relationship. Even more so than in his first term, when his disruptive impulses were curbed by traditionally minded Republicans in important positions.

Biden had positioned himself as the anti-Trump and thus won the election four years ago. Instead of “America first,” the message was once again that America can only be successful together with allies.

And for Biden, “allies” means above all: Europeans. Biden, who has been helping to shape American foreign policy since the 1970s, is a classic Atlanticist for whom NATO and the Munich Security Conference are fixed points in his political life.

Biden is a transatlanticist

The fact that America is taking the lead in a conflict between Europe and Russia is, to a certain extent, written into Biden’s DNA. For him, the legacy of the 1990s, a “free, secure and united Europe” that overcame the divisions of the Cold War, is one of the most important achievements of American foreign policy.

For Biden, supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression is an unquestionable American responsibility: the return of an aggressive-imperial Russia threatens America’s core interest in having Europe as a close partner on the other side of the Atlantic.

Biden’s foreign policy team actually came into office with the intention of focusing on China and the Indo-Pacific. A new consensus had already emerged in Washington in the late Obama years: the hope of making China a partner through integration and rapprochement had been dashed. Instead of becoming a stabilizing factor, China, which had become richer and more powerful, invested heavily in its military and increasingly began to question the status quo in the region.

Under Donald Trump, a confrontational China policy prevailed, and the Biden administration intensified this. In particular, it is trying to prevent the emerging power rival from gaining access to leading technology.

In keeping with his mantra that allies and partners make America strong, Biden also invested in deepening partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. Relations were expanded in various formats, particularly with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and India.

There was also more continuity between Biden and Trump in the Middle East than previously expected. The nuclear agreement with Iran was not renewed, and Biden invested in the reconciliation between Israel and its Arab neighbors that had begun under Trump. The centerpiece, a kind of three-way partnership with Saudi Arabia, Israel and the USA, was a struggle until the Hamas attack on Israel made this plan impossible for the time being.

There is much to suggest continuity under Harris

Kamala Harris has accompanied and supported all of this as Vice President. Harris has made a name for herself as a prosecutor and senator, but she has no discernible profile of her own in foreign policy. The widespread assumption is therefore that if she is elected President on November 5 and sworn into office in January, she would continue Biden’s policies.

There is much to suggest this. She would be able to build on her experience as Vice President – ​​Harris has made over twenty trips abroad and represented Biden at an ASEAN conference and at the Swiss Ukraine Peace Conference in June, for example, and she also appeared at the Munich Security Conference.

The profile of their current security advisor, Philip Gordon, who represents the Democratic mainstream in foreign policy, also speaks for continuity. Gordon began his career in 1998 in the National Security Council under Bill Clinton, with responsibility for Europe, then worked under Obama as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs and in the White House as Coordinator for the Middle East.

Philip Gordon comes from the same “stable” as Biden’s foreign policy advisers. Like them, he is fundamentally a liberal internationalist. He is therefore convinced that America has a global leadership role to play. At the same time, however, he has a strong dose of skepticism about American over-engagement, as he repeatedly made clear following his Middle East role in the White House. Gordon believes, like many in his milieu, that America has relied too heavily on military means and is instead counting on more diplomacy.

We can only speculate as to whether Gordon would play a key role as security advisor under President Kamala Harris. But it is likely that he has a chance of holding an important office.

Harris looks to Asia

All of this speaks for continuity – that is, for Kamala Harris as president to continue the Biden line. At the same time, however, there are also reasons that speak for change.

First of all, Biden’s presidency has been strongly influenced by foreign policy. He is an internationalist and transatlanticist by experience and conviction, as he has directly experienced and partly helped shape the transformations in Europe since the late Cold War. Kamala Harris does not have this whole background of experience, and she is not part of the East Coast establishment that is oriented towards Europe, but grew up in California and made her career there – where the focus is more on the Pacific and thus Asia.

Harris’s inexperience will also mean that she is more open to current changes and trends in American foreign policy. On the one hand, there is America’s tendency to retreat into itself, which was partly accentuated by Obama and Trump. On the other hand, there is the turn to Asia as the region that has become massively more important for the global economy and the future of the world order.

The issue of limited resources is crucial: after the end of the Cold War, during the “unipolar moment”, America was able to reap the “peace dividend” and had to invest less because it could rely on its “soft power”, on the attractiveness of its model. Globalization seemed to put economic issues in the foreground, and power politics and war were apparently a thing of the past.

Today, Washington must decide where it wants to – and can – use its limited resources. In an environment that is once again characterized by power rivalry, where the military has once again replaced the economic as the defining level of international relations, future US presidents will have to set stronger priorities.

A President Harris would be forced to set clear priorities. Based on her personal background, Asia is likely to play a major role. Her mother immigrated to the USA from India and worked there as a cancer researcher. India has been moving closer to the USA for years because it feels increasingly threatened by China. Harris’ father is an economist with African roots who immigrated from Jamaica. A background that suggests that Harris is likely to have a particular sensitivity for the so-called global south.

Europe loses central importance

For a President Harris, Europe is likely to lose the central importance it had for Biden. It is a tendency that was already evident under Obama. In keeping with the tradition of Democratic presidents, Harris would continue to rely on Europe as a group of important, like-minded allies, but she would probably see her real task in Asia, the region that both political camps in Washington, Democrats and Republicans, clearly prioritize.

Even Philip Gordon, who represents the European wing of Washington politics, has already warned the Europeans. In an article published jointly with Jeremy Shapiro in Foreign Affairs in 2019, Gordon declared: “No future US president will be elected with a mandate of solidarity with Europe without the certainty of getting something back.” The next president of the USA will probably focus more on Asia and Latin America than on Europe. In the future, America will no longer be “the transatlantic altruist from Europe’s nostalgic fantasies.”