Germany‘s Economy Minister and France‘s Europe Minister separately observe that Europe cant wait for its fate to be decided by politics in US. Saying that 4 years of Trump presidency have shown Europe it needs to determine own path when comes to economy, climate, tech and more/1
Clearly they know Europe stronger with US by its side eg on China, Iran, climate. Their argument esp tricky when comes to security . Europe has looked to US to have its back in security terms since WW2. Having Trump in White House has led Europeans to doubt that assumption /2
EU attempts to create own defence force are fraught with countless difficulties: practical, political, logistic Trump isn’t first US President to call on Europeans to spend more on Defence but Europeans fear if Trump returns to office he might weaken or destroy NATO altogether./3
EU leaders quietly hope for a Biden victory. There are stand-out exceptions: Hungary’s Victor Orban is an open admirer of Trump but general feeling is the last 4 years have done a lot of damage to EU-US relations and a Biden presidency may not heal that #USElection2020 /4
There’s a European expectation that Biden would reverse the perceived Trump trend of preferring to court authoritarian leaders rather than nurture relations with traditional allies BUT /5
Although the tone from Washington would likely be different, the EU thinks the content of clashes over trade, tech taxes, surveillance and more could well continue (though to a lesser degree esp on trade) under Biden /6
The EU is now preparing for a period of instability across the Atlantic following this election. Brussels admits too that if even if Biden becomes president his priority will be a multitude of domestic concerns before he really turns his attention to overseas relations /7
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