No easy ride for EU-US even with Biden's francophone team

[Klaralven]

US-president elect Joe Biden's appointment of French speakers to top positions has cheered Paris but France knows it will take more than mother tongue chats to overcome transatlantic strains, even after the departure of Donald Trump.

As his future secretary of state, Biden has named former deputy national security advisor Anthony Blinken, who spent part of his childhood in France and is fluent in French.

The special envoy for climate, former secretary of state John Kerry, spends his holidays in Brittany, while Michele Flournoy, in the running for defense secretary, studied in Belgium where she learned French.

The atmosphere of exchanges with this team is likely to be markedly more cheerful than contacts with the Trump administration that culminated in a frosty closed door visit to Paris this month by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

But an extra dose of bonhomie will not make strategic disagreements -- that range from the future of NATO to policy towards China -- go away.

Indeed, with conspicuous timing days after Biden's election victory was confirmed, a French journal published a mammoth interview with Macron where he outlined his vision for a Europe that acts independently of the United States.

Europe should have "strategic autonomy", he told Le Grand Continent, adding that it should "not become the vassal of this or that power and no longer have a say".

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201128-no-easy-ride-for-eu-us-even-with-biden-s-francophone-team

[OnDoutside]

2. Meh, the French talk the talk, but rarely walk the walk.The key is

Germany, and Biden will find a warm welcome awaiting him. Indeed, almost all Eu countries are delighted and relieved that Biden won.

[DFW]

3. The EU breathes a BIG sigh of relief, but the damage is done

The fact that the USA was capable of letting such a malevolent regime into power in the first place has sent up warning flags.

Their attitude is, "OK, you got rid of Trump, but what's to stop you from putting another one in his place four years from now?" The sad, realistic answer is, "nothing."

The reason that Germany is so welcome in the world now is that laws were put in place after World War II to make sure nothing like a Nazi regime could ever come to power again. Too many Americans still think Trump was wonderful to make any such law even remotely possible in the USA. Thus it is entirely possible for someone similar to come to power again in four years, and the EU knows it.

[Klaralven]

5. It would be good if the EU stepped up to being the third party in US, China, EU political system

Three party competitions are more stable, because the weaker two generally can combine to close the gap with the strongest.

Having the UK, Japan, Russia, India, Turkey and Brazil as independent second-tier competitors also increases global political stability.

[DFW]

6. In the non-aligned (sorta) group

You have three countries with huge land mass and a very cavalier attitude toward environmental destruction—Russia, India and Brazil. Not nearly as bad in the EU, but EU rules on many things require unanimous votes, currently stymied by two states, Poland and Hungary, who have reverted go the authoritarian ways of their former socialist regimes, as well as the « taker state » attitude of Republican-run states in America: don’t ever tell me how to run my place, but what I do doesn’t work, so give me money so I can continue to do it. Only China functions as a solid monolith, not impossibly using its wealth strategically so that America continues to elect enough Republicans so that the USA can never again act in its own best interests.

[Klaralven]

7. I think of India as quite different from Brazil and Russia

Environmental destruction in India is largely a consequence of its own over-population.

Russia and Brazil, along with Australia, Indonesia, etc, are less populated countries that are raw material sources for the East Asian, European and North American economies. They could curtail environmental destruction, but it would likely raise the cost of living in the US, EU, China triumvirate, which would be unpopular. Agriculture in Brazil and elsewhere is a particular source of environmental damage, but some countries, such as the UK and Japan import a large fraction of their food.

I think of the political organization of Europe as being similar to the US Articles of Confederation period. Loose federalism is ultimately unworkable, so the EU will have to reorganize, either as a whole, or with a core group taking the lead and coercing an/or ejecting the unwilling.

[ananda]

4. Really?

I have absolutely no worries about this.