For much of the past century…
…America saw itself as the leader of the free world
But its reputation in many rich countries…
…has reached a 20-year low
Hardly surprising perhaps…
Everybody stay down
The storming of the Capitol by pro-Trump supporters…
…marked the culmination of four years…
…in which the democratic norms of America…
…have been undermined and division has reigned
No more cover-ups
Incited by the only president to have been impeached twice
There was a sense that America was a beacon of democracy…
…for the rest of the world…
…and that has dissipated
This is not America
Terribly distressing
These images made me angry…
…and also sad
The challenge facing Joe Biden’s administration is immense
How can he repair America’s tarnished reputation…
…and restore its role as a global leader?
Fight for Trump
Of all the democratic norms President Trump violated…
…during his four years in the White House…
…none was as damaging to America’s reputation…
…as his refusal to transfer power peacefully
We will never give up, we will never concede…
…it doesn’t happen
You don’t concede when there is theft involved
An American president, the purported leader of the free world…
…using every means at his disposal…
…to try and countermand the result of an election that he lost…
…including inciting a mob to go and ransack the Capitol
That’s going to be an indelible image of the Trump era…
…and one that America will always have to confront in the future…
…when it tries to reassert its role…
…as a sort of global beacon for democracy
There’s a very real sense…
…among Joe Biden’s foreign-policy team…
…that foreign-policy begins at home…
…and that you have to address America’s own domestic problems…
…in order to be strong, in order to be admired abroad…
…including, of course, the great challenge of covid-19…
In early 2020, as the covid-19 pandemic spread…
…the world looked to America for leadership
But instead of taking on that role…
…President Trump retreated…
...dismissing the seriousness of the virus
It’s going to disappear one day…
It’s like a miracle
It will disappear
On the day that a mob stormed the Capitol…
…nearly 4,000 Americans died from covid-19…
…more than 350,000 Americans have already died
It hurt America’s global standing…
…that it was incapable of containing the spread of covid-19
In July, Trump formally announced…
…America was pulling out of the World Health Organisation
As president, Joe Biden has said he will reverse that decision
Domestically, he plans to hire 100,000 contact tracers…
…and spend $25bn on vaccine manufacturing and distribution
And globally…
…America is expected to join Covax…
…the International Vaccine Alliance…
…to deliver vaccines not just in America, but all around the world
It is an international health crisis
And the idea, we are at war with the virus…
…and it is, we’re at war for real
An engaged America can make an awful lot of difference
It’s important for the biggest crisis that the world is facing
It’s also, I think, an opportunity for Biden…
…to really show, in practical terms…
…that America is indeed back
Trump not only withdrew America from the WHO…
…but also from 12 other international organisations and treaties…
…including the Trans-Pacific Partnership
…or TPP
We are going to stand up to China…
…withdraw from TPP, which is another disaster
Reversing many of these decisions…
…and re-affirming America’s commitment to multilateral agencies…
…will be a relatively easy win for Biden
He’s going to leverage the many relationships…
…that he’s built over his nearly half-century in Washington…
…to try and repair whatever damage has been done…
…to alliances such as NATO…
…repair trust in the multilateral institutions such as the WHO…
…to try and rejoin some international accords on climate change…
…such as the Paris accord
But in addition to the policy decisions that he makes…
…the rhetorical shift that comes from the White House…
…which is so important, is going to be…
…I think, the biggest component of the change
America is going to be a rather more predictable power…
…than it was under Donald Trump
You’re not going to have the kind of sudden tweets…
…that reverse carefully formed policies…
…he won’t take the world by surprise…
…quite as much as Donald Trump did
And that in itself, I think, is going to reassure America’s allies…
…that America is more dependable than it was before
America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it
Biden has announced…
…he plans to hold a global Summit of Democracies,…
…which would bring together democratic leaders…
…to discuss ways of pushing back on autocracies
He will also want to find ways…
…to co-operate with the countries that are rivals of America
Donald Trump, of course, introduced a policy of America First
He started a number of trade wars
He introduced lots of sanctions
Most notably, President Trump imposed billions of dollars…
…of tariffs on Chinese products sold in America
Well I’m very happy with China right now
They are paying us billions and billions…
…will be over $100bn in the not-too-distant future
I think Donald Trump has recognised…
…that China represents a deep and growing challenge…
…to American power
Biden is going to also take a tougher stance…
…on China than previous administrations…
…Democratic and Republican…
…because both parties have lost faith…
…that under Xi Jinping, the Chinese regime will at all liberalise
Biden will prosecute that campaign…
…with more certainty and less impulse…
…but the underlying reality of tariffs on Chinese goods…
…might remain for some time…
…at the very least, they constitute some leverage…
…for, you know, future negotiations
That leverage may be useful when it comes to global warming
Particularly as China and America…
…are the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases
And it’s on climate change that Biden has the opportunity…
…to reaffirm America’s world standing
President Trump, pulling out of the Paris accord…
…ceded America’s global leadership on climate change
It’ll start getting cooler, you just watch
I wish science agreed with you
Well, I don’t think science knows actually
President Trump also dismantled many of America’s regulations…
…that were aimed at reducing carbon emissions
The Biden administration is going to reverse…
…the reversals that Donald Trump put into place
We’ll bring America back
Back into the Paris agreement
Put us back in the business…
…of leading the world on climate change again
He has an ambitious domestic climate agenda as well…
This includes setting the target for America of reaching net-zero…
…by 2050
Modellers say this target will shave 0.1 degrees Celsius…
…off their temperature projections for the end of the century
If Biden can formally submit this target
…before the COP26 UN climate summit in November…
…it will help convince other governments…
…that America plans to pull its weight
And then there’s Russia
Biden’s first challenge…
…will be extending the last remaining nuclear arms-control treaty
…between the two countries
…which is due to expire in early February
It’s particularly important for the maintenance of trust…
…between those two nuclear superpowers
It‘s by no means perfect…
…it doesn’t take into account other nuclear powers…
…particularly the rising power of China
But if it doesn’t exist, that would be hugely problematic
With one eye on the treaty with Russia…
…Biden will also be looking to another nuclear deal
One that is central to stability in the Middle East…
…the Iran nuclear deal, from which Trump withdrew in 2018
I think Joe Biden would like to get back into the Iran deal…
…but the world has changed since President Trump left that deal…
…so Iran has ramped up its nuclear activities
So just getting back to where things were before…
…is not going to be easy
One thing you have to remember is that on Iran…
…America will not be acting alone…
…as the original Iran deal was with European powers…
…and Russia and China
That’s a test, if you like, of the Biden administration’s ability…
…to work across some quite difficult sets of relationships…
…towards achieving a result
Many of President Trump’s America-first policies…
…were carried out by executive order…
…without the need of approval from Congress…
…which means they can be rolled back using the same process
But only certain changes can be made by executive orders
In order for Biden to make long-term shifts…
…getting legislation through Congress will be key
And that will be much more difficult
The fact that Democrats will control the Senate…
…and have unanimous control over the levers of power in Washington…
…albeit by the slimmest margins possible…
…suggests that he may be able to accomplish…
…a few of those far-reaching things, but certainly not all of them
And the long-lasting things that actually cement a president’s place…
…in American history…
…will come through a lot of hard and difficult negotiations…
…with Congress
Despite Biden’s ambitious plans…
…convincing the world America has shaken off Trump’s legacy…
…will be an uphill battle
There’s a tremendous desire…
…to see America back among America’s allies…
…so that will be hugely welcome
But there’s also a suspicion on a number of levels
There’s a suspicion, first of all…
…that, well, if you could elect someone like Donald Trump once…
…it could happen again
That’s not something you can change overnight
If the Senate convicts Donald Trump of inciting an insurrection…
…it will go some way to signalling to the rest of the world…
…that America’s checks and balances do work
But Biden inherits a poisoned legacy
If he fails to heal a divided nation…
…and restore trust in its democracy…
…then these images could continue to challenge…
…America’s role as leader of the free world…
…for years to come
I’m John Prideaux…
…The Economist’s US editor
You can read all our coverage on inauguration…
…and what’s in store for Biden presidency…
…on the link opposite
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