America Is Back

Khanna, Chandan. 2020

Resumo

Last week the president of the United States, Joe Biden, took his first international official trip. He went to the UK and Brussels to fulfill the commitments of the G7 summit, NATO, and the expected meeting with Vladimir Putin. These events are part of the American rhetoric that the country will take back the post of a world leader, denied by Trump, bringing back the historical politics of American hegemony in ruling the world post-cold war.

Key-words: United States of America; G7; Biden;

Referencial Teórico

The end of the Cold War meant the hegemony of the United States (CARDOSO, 2012). With that in mind, a question arises: how would the United States legitimize its actions on the international stage? Samuel Huntington sums this up in one word: primacy, which “is desirable not fundamentally to win a war, but to achieve the objectives of the state without recourse to it. Primacy is, therefore, an alternative to war” (HUNTINGTON, 1993) (GUIMARÃES, 2001).

That said, Samuel Pinheiro de Guimarães, affirms that the United States exercised global governance through International Organizations, mainly the Council of Security (CCS) of the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), in a search for hegemonic unipolarity. Thus, it is crucial to highlight that the multilateral environment gains a considerable proportion even though it serves as a mechanism of USA hegemonic implementation (GUIMARÃES 1999 apud MAPA, 2010).

The American primacy seeks to create a reality with subjective values and with the ability to converge values and actions, mobilizing countries for their capacity to ordinate the world power dynamics, establishing governance (ROSENAU, 2002). According to Hertz and Hoffman (2004), this governance was formed on the following basis: market economy, democracy, and human rights - the foundation of the western liberal order. Therefore, any country that does not follow the ideology of global governance will be isolated. Which implies a restriction of its economic, financial, commercial, and influence capacities in the dispute for world power. (HERTZ; HOFFMAN, 2004; GONÇALVES, INOUE,2017)

Pretending to keep the liberal world order, the USA assumed the role of paymaster of the global order, that is, the responsible actor for paying the price to adjust the actors of the world system to the intended order (MAGNOTTA, 2020). If one state represents a threat to the world order, especially looking for a new order, the paymaster should use the necessary means to correct the course of countries that threaten order (SEITENFUS, 2021). Until the 1990s, there was not an actor able to challenge the paymaster. However, since the last decade, China has become a powerful force that is challenging the western liberal order (PECEQUILO; LOPES, 2018).

Besides the Chinese question, being the paymaster demands financial and human resources, so the population sees no sense in the country's international engagement if its own country faces some of its intern issues (MAGNOTTA,2021. Donald Trump was perceptive in noticing the dissatisfaction of a large part of the American population with the high price paid in American lives and with large sums destined to maintain international order (MAGNOTTA, 2021).

His political slogan “America First” and “Make America Great Again” summarize the American feeling that it was necessary to focus on its questions. Which means moving away from the role of paymaster, breaking away from multilateral organs and mechanisms that have lost their essence as instruments of the liberal western international order (MAGNOTTA, 2021).

The Republicans accused international organizations, such as the WTO and UN, of being complacent with the exponential growth of Chinese capabilities, becoming an instrument for a future Chinese order (CARDOSO, 2018). Using the same rhetoric, Donald Trump said that the democrats, especially your predecessor, Barack Obama, were weak fighting China, pointing it out as mistaken in its dialogue-based policy with the Asian giant (CARDOSO, 2018).

Thus, the US ex-president adopted an aggressive way of acting on the international stage, starting a trade war with China and leaving relevant international mechanisms. Such as the UN Human Rights Council, pointing that it closed its eyes to human rights violations in China and other countries, the Paris Agreement, and Trump has threatened to withdraw the US from the WTO (CARDOSO, 2018; MAGNOTTA, 2021). All those actions created a world disorder that created a vacuum of power in the old position of the US, exactly where China took advantage to promote its agenda (SHENG; QINGQING, 2021). Trump created tensions with Europeans about environmental issues, especially climate changes (MAGNOTTA, 2021). About this, the republican has stated that climate change does not exist, and it is a Chinese plan to rein in Western countries' economies, above all its industrial capacity. Even though, China was not following the environmental goals of reducing carbon emission and controlling the global temperature. Europe, oppositely, has been committed to environmental preservation goals, which is a common political platform of most parties on the continent (CARDOSO, 2018). More than this, environmental issues are an important part of international politics, being an important resource of international political capital, especially the Paris Agreement, from which the US withdrew (MAGNOTTA, 2021).

Trump represented a rupture with the American traditional hegemonic way of acting, despising the international institution's capacities to concretize the American power, destabilizing a world order threatened by China (PECEQUILO; LOPES, 2018).

Any candidate that proposes a change in Trump's way of conducting foreign politics, needs to think about two central issues: China and multilateralism. In both, Biden adopted different ways from its predecessor, saying that "America is back. Diplomacy is back" in a clear counterpoint to "America First" and "Make America Great Again".

In his first international trip as president, Joe Biden went to Europe, more precisely UK and Brussels, for the meetings of G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and the US), and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), besides a private meeting with Vladimir Putin.

The G7 meeting involves the seven most industrialized countries in the world assumed few compromises. Like the “build back better” - infrastructure projects in developing countries, to contain the New Silk Road and the Belt and Road Belt, the donation of 1 billion doses of vaccines to poorer countries, guaranteeing 870 million this year and taxing multinational companies in at least 15% (THE WHITE HOUSE, 2021). There was a lot of discussion about climate change, renewable energy, and other environmental questions, which are, alongside the previously referred basis, a central agenda for Joe Biden, to reverse Donald Trump's policies.

But G7 powers fail to agree on a firm date to stop burning coal. Even so, the G7 intends to show to the poorer countries the benefits of democracy, looking to fill the US power vacuum left by the disorder in the international system promoted by Donald Trump. Anyway, all the speeches and initiatives were guided by the foundation of western liberalism: market economy, democracy, and human rights.

All the compromises were made to present a democratic alternative to Russia and China, which have been described as an authoritarian, non-market economy and a non-democratic country, emphasizing the human rights issue in Hong Kong and Xinjiang in China, and the Crimea annexation by Russia (THE WHITE HOUSE, 2021).

About these questions, the US president said, “I think China has to start to act more responsibly in terms of international norms on human rights and transparency”, showing the pressure of the western powers against China and Russia (NY TIMES, 2021). In the issue of China, Biden remained combative with China as Trump, but the democrat uses different ways for that, recognizing the importance of multilateralism for a Western Liberal alliance.

Another important question discussed in the G7 meeting is the origin of the COVID-19, requiring more investigations in China, asking for more transparency, linking this with the non-democratic regime of the country (THE WHITE HOUSE, 2021; NY TIMES, 2021). More than this, it is an attempt to reverse the good performance of China in the “vaccine diplomacy”, in which the country is extremely active, helping developing countries to get through the crisis, donating vaccines and other essential items to fight against the virus. If the hypothesis of an “intentional epidemic crisis” in China is confirmed, the Chinese efforts will be annulated, and the world will look to the western for answers (ROSCOE, 2021). Still in this question, the donation of 1 billion doses is a diplomatic way to attract the developing countries that orbit around China, acting according to vaccine diplomacy.

At the NATO meeting, it was more of the same: they discussed the need of improving the invested budget in the organization, aiming to strengthen the organizational capacity of military cooperation, besides reinforcing the threat that Russia and China pose to the western world (DW, 2021; NATO, 2021).

Russia has been accused by the US government of making cyberattacks against America, recalling the recent attack on the colonial pipeline, one of the most important of the country (DW, 2021). Thus, a cyberattack is a relevant issue to NATO. Since the creation of NATO, in 1949, its enemies have evolved: at first, the Soviet Union, after the cold war, the terrorism, and now, besides terrorism, China and Russia become a central issue in the operational axis of the organization.

The last compromise of President Biden was with Vladimir Putin. Since the beginning of the democrat mandate, the relations between the US and Russia have been tense, getting to the point where Biden calls the Russian president a murderer (GAZETA DO POVO, 2021).

Even with the tension, both countries recognize the importance of understanding between them, especially in nuclear questions. Biden stated that both presidents agreed with a 16-point document of sensible areas which should never be attacked by them. The 16 points are secret and will not be publicized (CNN, 2021; DW, 2021).

Undoubtedly, Russia is an important factor in the world power scenario, with its nuclear, economic, and size capacity (DW, 2021). Adding to this, the biggest country in the world is a strong ally of China, being important to notice the articulation between them, because they are cooperating in nuclear issues, as like the strategic cooperation to reshape the world order. China and Russia challenge the US for keeping Asia free of American influence (SHENG;QINGQING, 2021). This alliance is the biggest threat to the western world order.

As seen above, the world is living in a moment of uncertainty. The beginning of this scenario is not clear, but the growth of China and Trump's coming to power are two relevant points. It is too soon to affirm if America is back, it is only the first international travel of Joe Biden, but, at least in the rhetoric, the world is facing the traditional US.

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