Transcription
Nice to see you on Arte! For a new issue of Dessous des Cartes, we start with this image which will remain: on September 10, 2024, the televised debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the two presidential candidates, symptomatic of an America divided into two, polarized to the extreme, and two visions of the world which clashed that evening on a set. Trump resumed his slogan of "America First," which made him win in 2016, saying he was certain of being able to resolve conflicts in the world, particularly through his personal talents as a negotiator. Conversely, Kamala Harris put multilateralism back at the heart of her diplomatic project. The two candidates, however, had at least one diplomatic common ground: the protection of Israel, even if Kamala Harris was the only one of the two to remind us of the unsurpassable horizon of a two-state solution.
This is an opportunity for us to compare what the American diplomacy of Trump and Biden will have been during their respective presidential mandates, between ruptures and continuity. You will see, let's take out our cards! Since the end of World War II, the United States has sought to contain Soviet and Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific. This desire for containment has taken the form of a double belt of military bases in the Pacific, with the Korean and Vietnam wars. One belt, which leaves Yokosuka, Japan, headquarters of the American 7th Fleet, passes through the islands of Guam, American possession, Palau, Papua, and Australia. The other, which leaves South Korea, passes through Taiwan and the Philippines to reach Singapore.
But Beijing now intends to drive the United States out of what it considers to be its historical zone of influence: the Asia-Pacific. China has, for several decades, been constantly modernizing its navy, which is currently the second in the world with 252,000 sailors, behind that of the United States, which has 334,000 men. Regionally, China is far ahead of Japan or Korea. It uses this power to annex islands in the South China Sea belonging to other countries bordering the region, such as Vietnam or the Philippines, in defiance of international law.
Beyond maritime power in the region, the United States also makes it a priority not to let itself be overtaken by the Chinese economy, because China's GDP has experienced a meteoric increase over the last two decades. Chinese growth, even if it is experiencing a general decline, remains higher than that of the United States. The trade balance between the two powers is largely in deficit for Washington. In the space of 20 years, China has therefore become a real strategic and commercial rival of the United States.
So let's see what the strategies of the Trump and Biden governments were in the face of the Chinese danger. When Trump came to power in 2017, Washington had already begun to redeploy American forces to the Asia-Pacific since 2011. Trump confirmed the priority dimension of this Asian pivot by expanding it to the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. However, he opted for a disruptive, very counterproductive strategy. He abandoned South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, traditional allies of Washington, to try a bilateral approach with Beijing. This approach failed and pushed Trump to launch into a real trade war based on an increase in tariffs and an incentive to reduce Chinese imports to American companies.
At the same time, Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, while this participation, by guaranteeing leadership, made it possible to marginalize China within the region. Trump also began a dialogue with North Korean Kim Jong-un, which resulted in a resumption of Pyongyang's missile tests. Biden's arrival at the White House in 2021 was therefore a real relief for Washington's allies in the region. Japan received additional troops, bringing the number of American military personnel present on its territory to 54,000, the largest foreign contingent in the world. Washington also established a trilateral Japan-Philippines-South Korea dialogue. Japan signed defense agreements with Australia, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan, and moved closer to Vietnam and India.
In the Philippines, the number of American military bases increased in 2023 from 5 to 9, including 3 located near the Bashi Canal, a strategic passage that allows China to reach the Pacific. Finally, Taiwan, whose annexation is one of Beijing's priority objectives, obtained a promise of American military intervention in the event of Chinese aggression "in the same capacity as a NATO partner." Washington is also strengthening its presence in the wider Pacific, in Guam, where the Americans are building a second base, in the Northern Marianas, and in Palau. They are also strengthening diplomatic ties with the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
Biden is also relaunching the QUAD, the initially economic Quadrilateral Dialogue between the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, created in 2007 and shelved by Trump. In September 2021, Biden initiated a military alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom called AUKUS. On the economic front, the Biden government put in place, in 2022, an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) to facilitate commercial transactions between 13 countries in the region, which excludes China.
Nevertheless, on American soil, there is also continuity between the Democrat Biden and Trump: on the maintenance of high customs duties, on the relocation of industries vital to American competitiveness and security, and on the restrictions on sensitive technological exports towards China. We will have understood that there is therefore relative continuity from Trump to Biden to defend American interests in the face of the rise of Chinese power.
There is, despite everything, a difference in diplomatic approach between the two presidents, with Biden attempting, through his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, to increase meetings with the Chinese since 2021, with a view to a relative appeasement. The objective is to reduce the pressure between Beijing and Washington, especially since two new major conflicts have appeared and are mobilizing American diplomacy: the Russia-Ukraine and Hamas-Israel and Hezbollah-Israel conflicts. Two conflicts that Trump and Biden are not watching at all in the same way.
After Russian interference to favor the election of Trump in 2016 and the dependent relationship of the American president with the Russian autocrat, Biden's arrival in power reestablishes Washington's historic mistrust of Moscow. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the democratic government supported Kyiv without fail and, beyond that, reassured, through a redoubled commitment, the countries of Eastern Europe, Poland, the Baltic States, and Romania, worried about Putin's expansionism. In two years, the United States has provided more than $75 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Another consequence of Russian aggression was to restore a reason for NATO to exist, a time threatened by Trump, who considered that Europeans should ensure their security alone. In 2023 and 2024, the alliance will gain two new members: Finland and Sweden. The military spending of European countries increased on average by 12.5% between 2022 and 2023. Forced to re-engage in Europe, the United States will also be called upon in the Middle East following the resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2023.
Especially since in this region of the world, Trump's policy has left its mark with: the unfailing support of the Trump clan to Netanyahu and the most extreme currents of the Israeli right, the move of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and his draft plan for peace reducing Palestine to a mere handful of cities and towns, discontinuous areas connected by bridges and tunnels. Conversely, the Abraham Accords, which ratify the normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, contributed to pacifying the relationship between Israel and the Arab world. However, this first step towards normalization proved to have no effect on resolving the Palestinian crisis.
Finally, let us note that it is the possible extension of the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia that would have led Hamas to launch its terrorist attack against Israel to derail them. Biden, upon coming to power, put forward the two-state solution. If he did not obtain any progress, he nevertheless restored aid to the Palestinians suspended by Trump. The massacre of October 7 changed everything. The Americans had to strengthen their presence in the Mediterranean as well as military aid to Israel, which was already substantial at $3.8 billion per year.
If Biden has not given up on changing Netanyahu's hard-line policy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken's numerous trips to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have remained without effect, as the conflict widens in Lebanon between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, and in Yemen, where Houthi strikes against commercial ships have pushed the Americans and Israelis into targeted responses.
The other major point of difference between Trump and Biden in the Middle East is the attitude towards Iran. Taking the side of Israel, the former suspended the nuclear agreement signed by Obama with Iran and relaunched a series of sanctions. Biden attempted, upon his arrival, to normalize relations with Tehran by releasing $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets as part of a prisoner exchange agreement between the two countries, on the condition that this sum be used for humanitarian purposes. However, Iran's support for Hamas made this agreement obsolete.
So much for this inventory of diplomacy according to Trump and according to Biden. Biden, when he leaves the Oval Office to Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, will also leave to whoever replaces him two major unresolved conflicts: the Russia-Ukraine war, bogged down, without prospects, and a Middle East with fire and blood, from Gaza to Beirut, since the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel. Beyond that, there is a moribund multilateralism, without forgetting, of course, a Chinese-American competition that is not about to calm down.
To go further, this work by IFRI researcher Laurence Nardon publishes this geopolitics of American power to the university presses of France. So ends this new issue of Dessous des Cartes. See you next week, of course, same place, same time, and until then, don't forget Arte.tv and our social networks to find all of our videos and our newsletter. See you soon.