Biden’s toughest foreign policy challenge may be regaining allies’ trust

Washington CNN — President Donald Trump may be refusing to concede his defeat, but governments around the world are congratulating President-elect Joe Biden – and anticipating that he will adopt a more traditional foreign policy approach. Foreigners are eyeing the more than 70 million votes Trump received – tacit approval for the President’s four years of disruptive, sometimes damaging foreign policy that might be an indication of the direction the US is moving – and wondering whether Biden represents a return to “normal” or whether he will end up offering a brief reprieve. ‘One extreme to another’ “Thoughtful foreign counterparts realize it will be easy for Biden to reverse things that do not need to be ratified by Congress, and they expect those things, but the permanency of that is what worries people,” said a US diplomat based in Europe. “ fear ping-ponging back and forth from one extreme to another, especially because of how many people voted for Trump.” Another US diplomat overseas noted that in the short term, it will likely be “relatively easy to restore a positive movement and atmosphere in our alliances, key relationships … just by practicing normal good democracy,” but “longer term, people know the US could swing back to Trumpism, so they’re wary.” The international welcome to Biden has been warm. “The Biden team is fully aware that they are in a competition setting with China and that will be important, but that there are issues of mutual vulnerability like climate change that they need to address together.” North Korea Trump met with North Korea’s Kim three times and gushed about the “love letters” the dictator wrote him and how they “fell in love.” None of that dissuaded Kim from continuing to develop nuclear weapons that can reach US soil, making North Korea a more dangerous threat at the end of the Trump administration than it was at the beginning.