US Elections Untangled Finnish Institute of International Affairs

What will be first on president Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda, when he takes office in January? How will US foreign policy change after power has changed hands? Will the unusual transition period impact the Biden administration’s ability to govern effectively from day one? In this final episode of US Elections Untangled, Senior Research fellow Charly Salonius-Pasternak and Research Fellow Ville Sinkkonen discuss the implications of Joe Biden’s victory to the United States’ relationships with the rest of the world – including Finland and the rest of the Nordics.

What does the tight presidential race mean to the future of the United States? What will president Trump do if Joe Biden emerges victorious after all the votes have been counted?

The US has always had a tricky relationship with the UN and the International Criminal Court, but under President Donald Trump the attitude towards those international bodies has become downright hostile.
How different will the US treat the UN, the ICC and human rights issues if Joe Biden wins the election? There are many crucial differences between the two candidates’ approaches, says Leading Researcher Katja Creutz from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
“America first is not a policy that puts human beings first.”

What will be Donald Trump’s foreign policy legacy, if Joe Biden wins the election and Trump steps down after one full term in office?
“As trumpian ideas about American (global) leadership role have become more mainstream, it has created a situation where we can expect a lot more oscillation, more violent swings between different administrations when it comes to the United States’ approach to its international role,” says Research Fellow Ville Sinkkonen from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
“That’s an international level manifestation of the Trump phenomenon.”

The German-US relationship has gone from friendly to acrimonious under president Trump, and now Germany is anxious to see if the November elections will bring about a sea change in Washington. The results will have profound implications for Germany.
“The German foreign policy model is very much on the ballot in these US elections,” says Leading Researcher Niklas Helwig from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
“If it’s another four years of Trump, that means Germany will have to engage much more internationally, and because of Germany’s very hesitant foreign policy approach that is a very difficult task.”

The increasing antagonism between the US and China has put the countries in the Indo-Pacific region in a tough spot, and the American presidential elections are unlikely to make their life easier regardless of the result.
“US-China rivalry will continue. That is here to stay”, says Project Director Bart Gaens from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
“What we will continue to be seeing is that (the Indo-Pacific) countries are hedging and balancing the US and China against each other.”