LONDON, 11 Feb: As chances rise of a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch in the U.S. presidential election race, America\u2019s allies are bracing for a bumpy ride.
\nMany worry that a second term for Trump would be an earthquake, but tremors already abound \u2014 and concerns are rising that the U.S. could grow less dependable regardless of who wins. With a divided electorate and gridlock in Congress, the next American president could easily become consumed by manifold challenges at home \u2014 before even beginning to address flashpoints around the world from Ukraine to the Middle East.
\nFrench President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s recent verdict was blunt: America\u2019s \u201cfirst priority is itself.\u201d
\nThe first Trump administration stress-tested the bonds between the U.S. and its allies, particularly in Europe. Trump derided the leaders of some friendly nations, including Germany\u2019s Angela Merkel and Britain\u2019s Theresa May, while praising authoritarians such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He has called China\u2019s Xi Jinping \u201cbrilliant\u201d and Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orb\u00e1n \u201ca great leader.\u201d
\nIn campaign speeches, Trump remains skeptical of organizations such as NATO, often lamenting the billions the U.S. spends on the military alliance whose support has been critical to Ukraine\u2019s fight against Russia\u2019s invasion.
\nHe said at a rally on Saturday that, as president, he\u2019d warned NATO allies he would encourage Russia \u201cto do whatever the hell they want\u201d to countries that didn\u2019t pay their way in the alliance. Trump also wrote on his social media network that in future the U.S. should end all foreign aid donations and replace them with loans.
\nBiden, meanwhile, has made support for Ukraine a key priority and moral imperative. But Biden\u2019s assertion after his election in 2020 that \u201cAmerica is back\u201d on the global stage has not been entirely borne out. Congressional Republicans have stalled more military aid for Ukraine, while America\u2019s influence has been unable to contain conflict in the Middle East
\nThomas Gift, director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, said that whoever wins the presidential race, the direction of travel will be the same \u2013 toward a multipolar planet in which the United States is no longer \u201cthe indisputable world superpower.\u201d
\nMost allied leaders refrain from commenting directly on the U.S. election, sticking to the line that it\u2019s for Americans to pick their leader. They are conscious that they will have to work with the eventual winner, whoever it is \u2014 and behind the scenes, governments will be doing the \u201cbackroom work\u201d of quietly establishing links with the contenders\u2019 political teams, said Richard Dalton, a former senior British diplomat.
\nBut many of America\u2019s European NATO allies are worried that with or without Trump, the U.S. is becoming less reliable. Some have started to talk openly about the need for members to ramp up military spending, and to plan for an alliance without the United States.
\nGerman Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was \u201ccurrently on the phone a lot with my colleagues and asking them to do more\u201d to support Ukraine. Germany is the second-largest donor of military aid to Kyiv, behind the U.S., but Scholz recently told Die Zeit that the country couldn\u2019t fill any gap on its own if \u201cthe U.S.A. ceased to be a supporter.\u201d
\nRussia, meanwhile, is busy bolstering ties with China, Iran and North Korea and trying to chip away at Ukraine\u2019s international support.
\nMacron also suggested American attention was focused far from Europe. If Washington\u2019s top priority is the U.S., he said its second is China.
\n\u201cThis is also why I want a stronger Europe, that knows how to protect itself and isn\u2019t dependent on others,\u201d Macron said at a January news conference.
\nTrump does have supporters in Europe, notably pro-Russia populists such as Hungary\u2019s Orb\u00e1n. But former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson raised some eyebrows when he argued recently that \u201ca Trump presidency could be just what the world needs.\u201d
\nJohnson is a strong supporter of Ukraine in its struggle against Russian invasion, whereas Trump has frequently praised Putin and said he\u2019d end the war within 24 hours. However, Johnson said in a Daily Mail column that he didn\u2019t believe Trump would \u201cditch the Ukrainians,\u201d but instead would help Ukraine win the war, leaving the West stronger \u201cand the world more stable.\u201d
\nBronwen Maddox, director of the international affairs think tank Chatham House, said arguments like that underestimate \u201chow destabilizing\u201d Trump has been, and likely would continue to be if reelected. AP \u201cFor those who say his first term did not do much damage to international order, one answer is that he took the U.S. out of the JCPOA, the deal to curb Iran\u2019s nuclear program. Iran\u2019s acceleration of its work since then has left it a threshold nuclear weapon state,\u201d she said during a recent speech on the year ahead.
\nBiden was a critic of Trump\u2019s Iran policy but hasn\u2019t managed to rebuild bridges with Tehran, which continues to flex its muscles across the region.
\nDalton, a former U.K. ambassador to Iran, said prospects for the Middle East would be \u201cslightly worse\u201d under Trump than Biden. But he said divergence on the region\u2019s main tensions \u2014 the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran\u2019s ambitions \u2014 would be limited.
\n\u201cNo U.S. administration is going to make a serious effort to resolve differences with Iran through diplomacy,\u201d Dalton told The Associated Press. \u201cThat ship sailed quite some time ago.\u201d
\nPalestinians and their supporters, meanwhile, implore Biden to temper U.S. support for Israel as the civilian death toll from the war in Gaza climbs. But hard-liners in Israel argue the U.S. is already restraining the offensive against Hamas too much.
\nItamar Ben-Gvir, Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister, recently said Biden was not giving Israel his \u201cfull backing\u201d and that \u201cif Trump was in power, the U.S. conduct would be completely different.\u201d
\nMuch like its allies, America\u2019s rivals are not openly expressing a preference for the election outcome.
\nTrump developed a strong rapport with Turkey\u2019s Erdogan, calling them \u201cvery good friends\u201d during a 2019 meeting at the White House.
\nYet Turkey-U.S. relations were fraught during his tenure. The Trump administration removed Turkey from its F-35 fighter jet project over Ankara\u2019s decision to purchase Russian-made missile defense systems, while Trump himself threatened to ruin Turkey\u2019s economy.
\nRussian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told CBS in January that he doesn\u2019t \u201cbelieve there will be any difference\u201d between a Trump and a Biden presidency. He argued that Russia-U.S. relations have been going downhill since George W. Bush\u2019s administration.
\nChina, where leaders\u2019 initial warmth toward Trump soured into tit-for-tat tariffs and rising tensions, little changed under Biden, who continued his predecessor\u2019s tough stance toward the United States\u2019 strategic rival.
\nZhao Minghao, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, said that for China, the two candidates were like \u201ctwo \u2018bowls of poison.\u2019\u201d
\nGift, from University College London, said the move to a more fractured world is \u201cgoing to happen regardless of whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden is elected.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s just sort of a reality,\u201d he said. AP<\/p>\n
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