With the US hurtling towards election day, front-runner Joe Biden has just over 75 days left to convince the American public that he is the man to lead the country into a post-Covid world.
Few countries will be watching the result of the 3 November vote as closely as the UK, which traditionally enjoys a “special relationship” with the US.
Donald Trump’s presidency has seen those ties becoming strained, however. So could former vice-president Biden breathe new life into the relationship – or have the past four years irreversibly changed the diplomatic landscape?
What would a Biden presidency mean for Brexit?
Boris Johnson’s government is currently rushing to formalise new trade agreements ahead of the expiry of the Brexit transition period on 31 December.
In this “moment of British isolation”, Trump’s “full-throated endorsement of Brexit has made the United States a safe harbour”, complete with the “promise of a lucrative trade deal”, The New York Times says.
By contrast, Biden is an outspoken opponent of Brexit and was VP under Barack Obama in an administration that “put itself squarely behind David Cameron’s Remain campaign, notably clashing with Mr Johnson in the process”, The Times notes.
Obama famously warned that the UK would be placed at the “back of the queue” in trade talks if the country voted to leave the European Union.
And Biden was quoted on the day of the Brexit result as saying he would have “preferred a different outcome”, and warning against “reactionary politicians and demagogues peddling xenophobia, nationalism and isolationism” in both Europe and the US.
Pundits are torn over what all this means for the UK as the nation prepares to leave the bloc.
The New York Times suggests that a Biden presidency could be an “unsettling prospect” for British officials, who have “tried so hard to accommodate” the current US leader.
However, The Spectator’s political editor James Forsyth points out that Trump’s pro-Brexit rhetoric has yielded few tangible results.
“His words of support have delivered little in terms of practical assistance for Brexit Britain,” Forsyth writes. “He has also been a difficult ally, alienating other democracies, undercutting America’s moral leadership in the world and generating considerable uncertainty.”
Meanwhile, Biden “would be a less enthusiastic ally of Brexit Britain, but he might be a more useful one”.
How could trade be affected?
Despite Trump’s talk of trade deals with the UK, Downing Street has reportedly given up hope on the current US administration. Instead, officials are alleged to have approached senior US Democrats in a bid to “shore up cross-party support in Washington for a post-Brexit trade deal”, says Business Insider.
Trade minister Greg Hands told The Times’ trade correspondent Callum Jones that ministers “never strategise around elections”, but hinted that preparations for a Biden victory are under way.
“We do make sure for the overall UK trade agenda that we maintain bipartisan support in the US political system,” Hands said.
This apparent push to keep Biden on side may prove necessary, amid claims that he is planning to eschew a straightforward UK-US deal in favour of a more “meaningful” negotiation, The New European reports.
Biden may prioritise an EU trade deal over a deal with the UK, as well as shunning the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a treaty backed by Obama but abandoned by Trump.
A Biden administration “would be ill-advised to tie its hands with a UK trade deal before a return to some version of updated TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] negotiations with the European Union”, explains Dalibor Rohac, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute at the London School of Economics.
What about Biden’s Irish ties?
Described by The New York Times as a “devoted Irish-American”, Biden is expected to “fiercely defend Ireland’s interests, as will his allies in the Democratic Party’s Irish lobby on Capitol Hill”.
Biden and his circle are “particularly concerned” about Brexit’s effect on the Irish border, says The Spectator’s Forsyth. “Washington is clear that any British backsliding on that protocol would cause problems, not just with a Biden White House, but on Capitol Hill, too.”
And defence?
Britain’s relationship with the US has “declined steadily over the past decade of Conservative rule”, mainly as a result of differences over defence spending and strategy, says The Atlantic.
“Declining defence budgets, the ultimate failure of the Libya intervention, and the House of Commons’ refusal to authorise air strikes against Bashar al-Assad after he used chemical weapons all undermined Britain’s reputation as Europe’s strongest military power,” the magazine adds.
In an article on the The UK in a Changing Europe think-tank’s website, Birkbeck University politics professor Rob Singh writes that a Biden administration “would undoubtedly be more congenial [than Trump] to British preferences” on issues such as the Middle East.
But “the notion that it would represent a return to the status quo ante – Obama 2.0 – is misplaced”, Singh concludes.
