On the campaign trail, now-President Biden spoke of bringing America back to the table to lead a “united front” of democracies in confronting 21st-century challenges from climate change to the growing threat of authoritarianism. In a March 2020 op-ed in Foreign Affairs, helaid out a plan to achieve these ends. But recent foreign policy blunders, especially those regarding France-U.S. relations, betray that his words may only have been empty air.
Over the last week, a submarine missile deal gone wrong has caused France-U.S. relations to break down. This started when Australia announced that it was pulling out from a $66 billion deal to buy French-built submarines. In exchange, it would pursue an alternative peddled by the United States and Britain as part of a new AUKUS trilateral security pact. The resulting anger from France is understandable, considering that France’s military will be suffering a massive loss of another potential revenue stream, stolen out from under its nose by Americans who, to them, seem intent on inserting themselves in every deal on the international stage.
These recent diplomatic moves elicited a furious response from China, who viewed the security pact as a challenge to its regional stability and power. While Biden did promise to get tough on China, he also said that managing competition between the two superpowers before things break out into conflict would be a key component of his new doctrine. Biden's lack of consideration toward the broader geopolitical effects of the deal casts into doubt Biden’s commitment to a constructive China policy.
However, the devastating effect of the submarine deal on France-U.S. relations cannot be overstated. The bond between the two countries arguably has not been this strained since the two nations fell out over the Iraq War. French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Driandescribed the deal as a “unilateral, brutal, unpredictable decision” to “exclude a European ally and partner such as France” that “shows a lack of coherence.” These observations are not without merit. By leaving France completely in the dust, Biden is actively continuing Trump’s practice of undermining traditional allies to pursue American self-interest. While some may argue that Biden simply anticipated Europe’s intent of selling out to China — after all, Europe relies on the People’s Republic of China for most of its trade, giving soft power to China to wield over the continent — it couldn’t have hurt to try to rally the world’s dominant democracies together.
When it came to dealing with European allies, Donald Trump abandoned America’s traditions of maintaining a strong, respectful relationship, motivated at least partially by a desire to bring Europe closer in line to his vision for international trade. Now, Joe Biden, like his predecessor, seems to have no real principles in international relations, acting completely in accordance with domestic political incentives.
Republicans threatened to frame Biden as soft on terror if the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was reinstated and so Biden let his only chance of diplomacy with Iran fall by the wayside, despite knowing that Iran was on the brink of electing a new government even more reluctant to negotiate with the West. On another count, China is seen as the greatest threat to American hegemony overseas. Biden abandons any facade of approaching them diplomatically in a transparent move designed to undercut China’s force projection, simultaneously betraying traditional European allies to achieve this end.
At times, the new president’s political philosophy — or arguably lack thereof — has produced somewhat positive results, like when he effectively relied on favorable polling among a majority of the American public to justify pulling out of Afghanistan, finally ending the nation’s longest war. However, this reversion to the Trumpian habit of simply playing to a domestic base undercuts American leadership and weakens our relationships with our allies, clearly running contrary to Biden’s campaign promises. Ultimately, the capacity of the United States to act as a moral leader and maintain international trust diminishes the more that the United States turns away from its allies, and this is no different under Joe Biden’s self-interested foreign policy.
