President Biden: Can the Democrat Regain America's Unity and Credibility After the Extreme Polarization of the Trump Era?
Incoming US President Joe Biden has repeated a phrase since winning the election in November: "America is back."
It is a message directed both to the rest of the planet and to the interior of your country.
Globally, his declared intention is for Washington to "lead the world" again after the outgoing President Donald Trump withdrew the US from international agreements, strained old alliances and weakened multilateral organizations.
Domestically, Biden intends to bury the times of polarization and conflict that characterized the Trump administration, with the declared purpose of "healing" and "unifying" the country.
Any of those goals by itself looks ambitious. But raising them simultaneously is a daunting task.
The US was shaken by the attack on the Capitol, politically fractured, decimated by a covid-19 pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 people, punished by a colossal economic crisis and questioned by its allies.
So can Biden repair America's unity and credibility after the Trump era?
"An opportunity"
It seems clear that to regain Washington's leadership on the international board, Biden must first achieve some order at home.
Otherwise, everything will be even more difficult for the Democrat.
Which countries would follow a power shaken by several crises at once? How many rulers can a president unable to lead in his own country persuade?
However, some experts believe that the current US context may allow Biden to advance his domestic agenda with an efficiency unthinkable not long ago.
It is not just that the coronavirus crises and the economy pose urgency for the government to act.
Biden foresees, for example, promoting a stimulus and aid plan for US $ 1.9 billion with the majority that he will have in both houses of Congress.
In addition, Trump has lost part of his political capital by avoiding acknowledging Biden's triumph, denouncing electoral fraud without presenting evidence, and especially after a mob of his followers invaded Congress on January 6.
The Republican Party passes into the opposition divided between those who distance themselves from Trump and those who still support him.
"Biden has the opportunity to appeal to a broader spectrum of Americans than on November 4, the day after the election. Trump, by behaving so badly, has given the incoming president a gift, or at least a chance. And now we'll see how he takes advantage of it, "says William Galston, a US domestic policy expert at the Brookings Institution who advised former President Bill Clinton.
"It will be very difficult for Biden to unite the country, but not impossible. Behind the obvious disagreements are underlying agreements in the American people about what should be done (…). Different polls indicate that many Americans want a middle ground, more commitment, more practical progress ", Galston tells BBC Mundo.
Some believe that the right person is Biden, a moderate Democrat who was Barack Obama's vice president after accumulating years of experience in the Senate and who has sought to avoid political polarization.
But the truth is that bridging America's huge political, economic and racial rifts will require the commitment of much more than one person, even if that person is the president.
A different world
Biden also has vast experience in international politics, from his past on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and his eight years as Obama's second.
In addition, the incoming president has elected Obama administration veterans to key foreign policy positions, including Antony Blinken as secretary of state and John Kerry, who served in that position in the past, as special envoy for climate.
However, different experts warn that today's world is different from four years ago.
On the one hand, China has gained greater geopolitical weight. On the other, the US under Trump seems to have lost all reminiscence of its "exceptionalism" or idea of a beacon of liberal democracy in the world, especially after the attack on the Capitol.
"It will be enormously difficult for President Biden to restore the shine and confidence in America's global leadership," warns Stewart Patrick, program director for International Institutions and Global Governance at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). in English), a research center based in New York.
In his opinion, Biden will have national policy limits to advance foreign cooperation. And the two radical changes in direction that the US had in four years, with the 2016 and 2020 elections, may raise doubts among old allies about the country's credibility.
Biden promised to return to the World Health Organization, the Paris Agreement on climate change and the nuclear pact with Iran, from which Trump withdrew the US during his presidency.
But in recent days the Trump administration has further complicated the foreign agenda of his successor.
The outgoing Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, argued for example without offering clear evidence that Iran is a new base of operations for Al Qaeda, and included Cuba in the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, after Obama removed it in 2015.
Some analysts warn that Biden will have to adapt to the internal and external restrictions that he will have to act on the global board.
"Under these circumstances, the best that can be hoped for is that Joe Biden approaches America's role in the world with greater humility and acknowledges that the days of America's unquestionable global leadership are over," Patrick tells BBC World.
