The New York Times - USA (2020-11-09)

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2020 N P17

Election

U.S. relations with China are the
worst since the countries normal-
ized ties four decades ago. Ameri-
ca’s allies in Europe are alienated.
The most important nuclear anti-
proliferation treaty is about to ex-
pire with Russia. Iran is amassing
enriched nuclear fuel again, and
North Korea is brandishing its
atomic arsenal.
Not to mention global warming,
refugee crises and looming fam-
ines in some of the poorest places,
all amplified by the pandemic.
President-elect Joseph R. Biden
Jr. is inheriting a landscape of
challenges and ill-will toward the
United States in countries hostile
to President Trump’s “America
First” mantra, his unpredictabili-
ty, embrace of autocratic leaders
and resistance to international co-
operation. Mr. Biden also could
face difficulties in dealing with
governments that had hoped for
Mr. Trump’s re-election — particu-
larly Israel and Saudi Arabia,
which share the president’s deep
antipathy toward Iran.
But Mr. Biden’s past as head of
the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee and as vice president
in the Obama administration have
given him a familiarity with inter-
national affairs that could work to
his advantage, foreign policy ex-
perts who know him say.
“President Trump has lowered
the bar so much that it wouldn’t
take much for Biden to change the
perception dramatically,” said
Robert Malley, chief executive of
the International Crisis Group
and a former adviser in the
Obama White House. “Saying a
few of the things Trump hasn’t
said — to rewind the tape on multi-
lateralism, climate change, hu-
man rights — will sound very loud
and significant.”
Here are the most pressing for-
eign policy areas the Biden ad-
ministration will face:

Challenge of U.S.-China relations

Nothing is more urgent, in the
eyes of many experts, than re-
versing the downward trajectory
of relations with China, the eco-
nomic superpower and geopoliti-
cal rival that Mr. Trump has en-

gaged in what many are calling a

new Cold War. Disputes over

trade, the South China Sea, Hong

Kong, Taiwan and technology

have metastasized during Mr.

Trump’s term, his critics say,

worsened by the president’s racist

declarations that China infected

the world with the coronavirus

and should be held accountable.

“China is kind of the radioactive

core of America’s foreign policy is-

sues,” said Orville Schell, director

of the Asia Society’s Center on

U.S.-China Relations.

Mr. Biden has not necessarily

helped himself with his negative

depiction of China and its leader,

President Xi Jinping, during the

2020 campaign. The two were

once seen as having developed a

friendly relationship during the

Obama years. But Mr. Biden, per-

haps acting partly to counter Mr.

Trump’s accusations that he

would be lenient toward China,

has recently called Mr. Xi a “thug.”

The Middle East: Shifts on Israel,

Saudi Arabia and Iran?

Mr. Biden has vowed to reverse

what he called the “dangerous

failure” of Mr. Trump’s Iran policy,

which repudiated the 2015 nuclear

agreement and replaced it with

tightening sanctions that have

caused deep economic damage in

Iran and left the United States

largely isolated on this issue.

Mr. Biden has offered to rejoin

the agreement, which constricts

Iran’s nuclear capabilities if

Tehran adheres to its provisions

and commits to further negotia-

tions. He also has pledged to nul-

lify Mr. Trump’s travel ban affect-

ing Iran and several other Mus-

lim-majority countries.

Whether Iran will accept Mr. Bi-

den’s approach is unclear. Ayatol-

lah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme

leader, has said the United States

is untrustworthy regardless who

is in the White House. At the same

time, “Iran is desperate for a

deal,” said Cliff Kupchan, chair-

man of the Eurasia Group, a politi-

cal risk consultancy.

Still, Mr. Kupchan said, Mr. Bi-

den will face difficulties in any ne-

gotiations with Iran aimed at

strengthening restrictions on its

nuclear activities — weaknesses

Mr. Trump had cited to justify re-

nouncing the nuclear agreement.

“The substance will be tough —

we’ve seen this movie and it’s not

easy,” Mr. Kupchan said. “I think

Biden’s challenge is that it will not

end up blowing up in his face.”

Mr. Biden’s Iran policy could

alienate Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu of Israel, who lever-

aged Mr. Trump’s confrontational

approach to help strengthen Is-

rael’s relations with Gulf Arab

countries, punctuated by normal-

ization of diplomatic ties with the

United Arab Emirates and

Bahrain. How Mr. Biden manages

relations with Saudi Arabia, which

considers Iran an enemy, will also

be a challenge.

“There’s a very hard square to

circle here,” Mr. Kupchan said.

Mr. Trump’s extremely favor-

able treatment of Israel in the con-

flict with the Palestinians also

could prove nettlesome as Mr. Bi-

den navigates a different path in

the Middle East. He has criticized

Israeli settlement construction in

occupied lands the Palestinians

want for a future state. And he is

likely to restore contacts with the

Palestinian leadership.

“Benjamin Netanyahu can ex-

pect an uncomfortable period of

adjustment,” an Israeli columnist,

Yossi Verter, wrote Friday in the

Haaretz newspaper.

At the same time, Mr. Biden also

has a history of cordial relations

with Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Biden

has said he would not reverse Mr.

Trump’s transfer of the American

Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

from Tel Aviv — a relocation that

deeply angered the Palestinians.

Repairing relations with Europe

and navigating Brexit

While Mr. Trump often dispar-

aged the European Union and

strongly encouraged Britain’s exit

from the bloc, Mr. Biden has ex-

pressed the opposite position.

Like former President Barack

Obama, he supported close Amer-

ican relations with bloc leaders

and opposed Brexit.

Mr. Biden’s ascendance could

prove especially awkward for

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of

Britain, who had embraced Mr.

Trump and had been counting on

achieving a trade deal with the

United States before his country’s

divorce from the bloc takes full ef-

fect. Mr. Biden may be in no hurry

to complete such an agreement.

While many Europeans will be

happy to see Mr. Trump go, the

damage they say he has done to

America’s reliability will not be

easily erased.

“We had differences, but there

was never a basic mistrust about

having common views of the

world,” Gro Harlem Brundtland,

the former prime minister of Nor-

way, told The New York Times last

month. Over the past four years,

she said, European leaders had

learned they could “no longer take

for granted that they can trust the

U.S., even on basic things.”

Confronting North Korea’s threat

Mr. Trump has described his

friendship and three meetings

with Kim Jong-un, the North Ko-

rean leader, as a success that

averted war with the nuclear-

armed hermetic country. But crit-

ics say Mr. Trump’s approach not

only failed to persuade Mr. Kim to

relinquish his arsenal of nuclear

weapons, it bought Mr. Kim time

to strengthen them. Last month

the North unveiled what appeared

to be its largest ever interconti-

nental ballistic missile.

“On Trump’s watch, the North’s

nuclear weapons program has

grown apace, its missile capabili-

ties have expanded, and Pyong-

yang can now target the United

States with an ICBM,” said Evans

J.R. Revere, a former State De-

partment official and expert on

North Korea. “That is the legacy

that Trump will soon pass on to Bi-

den, and it will be an enormous

burden.”

Mr. Biden, who has been de-

scribed by North Korea’s official

news agency as a rabid dog that

“must be beaten to death with a

stick,” has criticized Mr. Trump’s

approach as appeasement of a dic-

tator. Mr. Biden has said he would

press for denuclearization and

“stand with South Korea,” but has

not specified how he would deal

with North Korean belligerence.

A likely tougher Russian approach

Mr. Biden has long asserted that

he would take a much harder line

with Russia than Mr. Trump, who

questioned NATO’s usefulness,

doubted intelligence warnings on

Russia’s interference in U.S. elec-

tions, admired President Vladimir

V. Putin and said that improving

American relations with the

Kremlin would benefit all. Mr. Bi-

den, who as vice president pushed

for sanctions against Russia over

its annexation of Ukraine’s Crime-

an peninsula in 2014 — the biggest

illegal land seizure in Europe

since World War II — might seek

to extend those sanctions and take

other punitive steps.

While tensions with Russia

would likely rise, arms control is

one area where Mr. Biden and Mr.

Putin share a desire for progress.

Mr. Biden is set to be sworn in just

a few weeks before the scheduled

expiration of the 2010 New Stra-

tegic Arms Reduction Treaty. He

has said he wants to negotiate an

extension of the treaty without

preconditions.

A return to the Paris Agreement

and international commitments

Mr. Biden has said one of his first

acts as president will be to rejoin

the Paris Climate accord to limit

global warming, which the United

States officially left under Mr.

Trump on Wednesday. Mr. Biden

also has said he would restore U.S.

membership in the World Health

Organization, which Mr. Trump

repudiated, describing the W.H.O.

as a lackey of China.

Mr. Biden is expected to reverse

many of Mr. Trump’s isolationist

and anti-immigrant policies,

which are widely seen by Mr.

Trump’s critics as shameful stains

on American standing in the

world. Mr. Biden has said he

would disband Mr. Trump’s immi-

gration restrictions, stop con-

struction of his border wall with

Mexico, expand resources for im-

migrants and provide a path to cit-

izenship for people living in the

United States illegally.

Nonetheless, many of Mr.

Trump’s policies had much sup-

port in the United States, and it is

unclear how quickly Mr. Biden can

change them. The convulsions

that roiled American democracy

and the divisive election have also

sown doubts about Mr. Biden’s

ability to deliver on his pledges.

“There is relief at a return to

some kind of normalcy, but at the

same time, history cannot be

erased,” said Jean-Marie Gue-

henno, a French diplomat who is a

fellow at the Brookings Institu-

tion’s Foreign Policy Program and

a former under secretary general

for peacekeeping operations at

the United Nations. “The kind of

soft power that the United States

has enjoyed in the past has largely

evaporated.”

GLOBAL POLICY

Biden to Face a Long List of Foreign Challenges, With the Chinese at the Top

By RICK GLADSTONE

Shoppers wearing masks in a market in Tehran last month.

American tensions with Iran remain high.

ARASH KHAMOOSHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

BALLINA, Ireland — As Amer-
ica turned slowly blue, Ballina
held its breath.
Was it really possible that Jo-
seph R. Biden Jr., considered a na-
tive son of this charming town on
Ireland’s west coast — albeit five
generations removed — was
about to become the next Ameri-
can president?
It was. On Saturday, the election
was called for Mr. Biden, and Bal-
lina was ready to celebrate.
The first champagne cork was
popped by Mr. Biden’s distant
cousins in the town’s Market
Square, watched by a few hundred
delighted townspeople, two hours

before CNN made the call. Some-
one drove up in a cherry red ’59
Buick Electra coupe with Elvis
cushions in the back window. A
speaker played Mr. Biden’s cam-
paign song, Bruce Springsteen’s
“We Take Care of Our Own,” and
the walk-on music from former
President Bill Clinton’s winning
campaign, “Don’t Stop (Thinking
About Tomorrow).”
Pride in Mr. Biden is strong in
this town. His great-great-great
grandfather Edward Blewitt was
born in Ballina and emigrated to
Scranton, Pa., just after the great
Irish famine of 1845-49, according
to historians.
Now the town can boast that it
has produced not one but two
presidents. Mary Robinson, the
global human rights campaigner
who became Ireland’s first female
head of state, was born a few hun-
dred yards from Market Square,
in a house by the salmon-rich
River Moy. She won election on
Nov. 7, 1990 — exactly 30 years be-
fore Mr. Biden’s victory.
“It’s amazing to think of it,” said
Aileen Horkan, an elementary
school teacher in town. “I can tell
any child in my school that they
can grow up to be a president.”
On Friday evening, glued to
CNN and the Irish public broad-
caster RTE, not even these doom-

laden fans of County Mayo’s

heartbreaking Gaelic football

team could see a way for their boy

to snatch defeat from the jaws of

victory. They would have to pre-

pare a party for when the election

was called. But where, and — with

Ireland under a strict coronavirus

lockdown — how?

The first question was easily

answered.

As the sun set on Friday, a beau-

tiful, crisp late-autumn day, the

Ballina Community Clean Up

group began to assemble under

the town’s newest piece of street

art, a giant oddly Warhol-like Bi-

den billboard that beams down on

the square. It was erected two

months ago in what seem to have

been guerrilla circumstances.

“We had it up before the county

council knew,” confided Linda

O’Hora, a member of the group

who helped to paint and assemble

the tribute in a local warehouse.

“Anything over 25 meters

square would need planning per-

mission from the council,” said

David O’Malley, a local lawyer

and informal legal adviser to the

group. “That painting is 24.98.”

Anyway, he said, the image was on

a private wall.

Next the planners had to decide

how to decorate.

A lone string of stars-and-

stripes bunting was located and

run across to a neighboring build-

ing. More would have to be found.

Ms. Horkan, wearing a Biden-

Harris 2020 T-shirt, had brought

some old Christmas decorations

and was trying to work out how to

repurpose them.

“You can’t buy anything now

because of the Covid lockdown,”

she said. “All the stores are shut.”

Scouts were dispatched to track

down the owners of the local joke

shop and the theatrical costume

store, which were rumored to

have stockpiles of bunting and

U.S.-themed paraphernalia, as

well as unsold Donald Trump Hal-

loween masks.

Ms. Horkan recalled that two

children from her school had come

in at Halloween dressed as the

presidential rivals.

“We should get them to do it

again,” she suggested.

By the next morning, the

streets of Ballina had sprouted

American and Irish flags, while

print shops were busy turning out

posters of Mr. Biden in county col-

ors, with the legend “Go Mayo,

Joe.” A steady stream of parents

led their children up to the wall, to

have their pictures taken under

the president-elect.

Gerry Luskin, a local restaura-

teur and president of the Ballina

Chamber of Commerce, said there

were longstanding links between

Ballina and Mr. Biden’s home-

town, Scranton. Many people

from Mayo emigrated to Scran-

ton, and Ballina and Scranton are

sister cities.

“There are a lot of ordinary peo-

ple in Ballina who also have rela-

tions in Scranton,” he said. “When

his great-great-great grandfather

went to Scranton, a lot of other

people followed, and they worked

in the railroad and the coal mining

and things like that.”

Mr. Biden’s ancestor was a gov-

ernment official and a surveyor,

and he was deeply involved in

famine relief, according to histori-

ans.

“When we saw Lackawanna

County turn blue on CNN, we said

that’s all the Ballina people who

went there,” Ms. Horkan said of

the county containing Scranton.

Mr. Biden won more than 53 per-

cent of the votes in Lackawanna

County, and his victory in Penn-

sylvania propelled him to clinch

the presidency.

Mr. Luskin recalled being a ju-

nior chef at nearby Ashford Castle

when Ronald Reagan stayed there

during his own presidential pil-

grimage to ancestral soil in 1984.

But he said he thought Mr. Rea-

gan, like several other presiden-

tial visitors to Ireland, mainly had

an eye on shoring up his Irish-

American vote.

Mr. Biden, he said, has real and

affectionate links to Ballina.

Apart from an official visit in

2016, when Mr. Biden was vice

president, he has made several

other informal trips to the town. In

2017, he broke ground for the re-

gion’s new hospice, of which he is

a patron.

Joe Blewitt, a 41-year-old

plumber and Mr. Biden’s third

cousin, has met him several times

in Ballina. Mr. Blewitt was a guest

at the tearful White House cere-

mony where President Barack

Obama surprised Mr. Biden, then

his vice president, with the Presi-

dential Medal of Freedom — the

nation’s highest civilian honor —

for his service to the country.

He arrived at the square in Bal-

lina in a van that bore the legend

“Joe Biden for the White House

and Joe Blewitt for Your House.”

“He’s a lovely man,” said Mr.

Blewitt as his daughters Emily, 9,

and Lauren, 7, smiled and shiv-

ered in the cold. “A really nice

man. He knows how to handle

himself.”

“He’s real presidential ma-

terial,” he added.

“When he came back in 2017 to

turn the sod for the hospice, we

had lunch with him and his

brother, and he’d no security this

time, and we just talked about all

sorts. He could be all day talking

and telling stories. He has a few

good ones. He’s a long time at it.”

Are there many other Blewitts

left in Mayo?

“Too many,” joked a voice in the

background.

Derek Leonard, owner of Har-

risons pub, bemoaned that any

celebrations would take place un-

der a lockdown, which has shut all

of Ireland’s bars.

But, like many other business

owners in the town, he hoped this

would be more than made up for

by future trade from visitors ex-

ploring the roots of an American

president.

It is believed that the house in

which Mr. Biden’s great-great-

great grandfather was born and

raised, now gone, stood in a dis-

used lane behind Harrisons, Mr.

Leonard said.

“It’s full of rubble right now, but

I’ll clear that out,” he said. “And

we’ll put up a plaque, even if I

have to do it myself.”

NATIVE SON

Biden’s Irish Home

Finds a Way to Party

Despite the Lockdown

By ED O’LOUGHLIN

Joe Blewitt, above, a third cousin of the president-elect, pops a

cork for the celebration in Ballina, Ireland, on Saturday in front

of a barely legal billboard. Mr. Biden’s great-great-great grandfa-

ther was born in Ballina, where shops showed their support.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PAULO NUNES DOS SANTOS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

In County Mayo, they

were watching as

Scranton turned blue.