How Biden Can Bring the U.S. and Europe Back Together
The new administration should understand that much has changed on the other side of the Atlantic over the last four years.
Co-stars.
Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg
During my years at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I developed a healthy respect for Europe as a U.S. partner. Not just through NATO participation, but most strongly through shared values including personal liberty, freedom of the press and fair trade. The transatlantic alliance partnered not just in international operations, from peacekeeping in Bosnia to fighting together in Afghanistan, but also on addressing climate change through the Paris climate accords.
That balanced relationship, of course, has been knocked askew by Brexit and President Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy. With the U.S. election over and the transition to the Joe Biden administration gaining momentum, there will be a sense that we should rebuild the U.S.-European relationship. I agree with that simple proposition. It would be a mistake, however, to aim for returning to the world of the Barack Obama administration and reinstitute the policy choices of four years ago.