EU won’t snap back to former ties with US even if Biden wins election: French FM

The European Union (EU) and the United States would not return to the previous close relationship they enjoyed prior to Donald Trump’s presidency even with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the White House, says a top French diplomat.

“We will not return to the status quo ante, to the good old days of the trans-Atlantic relationship,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe1 Radio. “The world has moved on after these four years.” 

“Europe has emerged from its naivete. It is beginning to assert itself as a power,” Le Drian added.

Analysts, however, say a Biden presidency is a drastic relief for European officials who have struggled to maintain good relations with Washington over the past four years, which sent the ties to an unprecedented low level.

They say that the former vice president has already an extensive network of contacts across Europe from his eight years in President Barack Obama’s administration.

“Everybody knows him,” said a defense analyst and advisor to the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, François Heisbourg.

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“The good news is that we will be able to have an adult relationship again with people speaking with each other, rather than past each other,” he said. “Biden is not only an adult person, but a rather rational one.”

"You have to assume things can turn around in 2024,” Heisbourg said. “This Republican Party had four million more votes than last time with the most dysfunctional candidate you can imagine.”

Trump has pursued somewhat hostile and inconsistent policies towards Europe during his tenure. He decided to withdraw the US from the global Paris Agreement, a decision that took effect this past Wednesday. He also terminated the US' relationship with and funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) amid the coronavirus pandemic.

His decision to pull the US out of the Iran nuclear deal - reached after years of negotiations between Tehran and the world powers - provoked reaction from Brussels.

The Republican president also sparked controversy when he started complaining that Washington was spending too much on defending Europe and threatened to pull the US out of NATO, the military alliance of the West’s security for 70 years.

Trump has once called the EU “a foe,” saying that they “have really taken advantage of us.”

Such remarks prompted EU leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to warn that the EU could no longer trust Washington.

Meanwhile in the US, Biden said Friday night he was going to win the presidential election.

'We're going to win this race': Biden

Joe Biden has said he is going to win the presidency as incomplete returns from the presidential election showed the Democrat close to an insurmountable lead.

He has so far secured 264 out of 270 electoral votes needed for him to become the 46th US President, while Trump has obtained 214.

He is leading Trump in the key states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona, while the president is ahead in Alaska and North Carolina. He is widening his vote numbers in Pennsylvania and Georgia.

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