ANALYSIS | What Joe Biden’s victory means to the world

(CNN) – The free world will have a new leader.

Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election, defeating conservative populist Donald Trump, could usher in a dramatic shift in America’s attitude towards the world. But does this mean that things will return to normal?

The veteran Democrat politician, who takes office in January 2021, has vowed to be a safe pair of hands for the world. He promises to be friendlier to Trump’s America allies, tougher with the autocrats, and better for the planet. However, the foreign policy landscape can be far more challenging than you remember.

A lot has changed since Biden last served in the White House as former President Obama’s vice president. America’s enemies, some incited by Trump, others empowered by him, are more entrenched.

The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin; the president of China, Xi Jinping; North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and others exploited Trump’s vanity and betrayed his ego, reaping their own profits. Some are now effectively leaders for life.

Biden promises to be different, to reverse some of Trump’s most controversial policies, including climate change, and to work more closely with America’s allies.

On China, he says he will continue Trump’s hard line on trade, intellectual property theft, and coercive trade practices by co-opting allies rather than intimidating as Trump did.

On Iran, he promises that Tehran will have a way out of sanctions if it abides by the multinational nuclear deal it oversaw with Obama, but which Trump abandoned. And with NATO, it is already trying to rebuild trust by promising to instill fear in the Kremlin.

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These are easy and pleasant actions for the veteran politician, who for many years chaired the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Steeped in the traditions of US global leadership defending democracy and human rights, he has been an advocate of US interventions in the Balkans and Darfur, albeit unsuccessfully; and promoted nuclear non-proliferation.

But implementing his foreign policy vision now will not be easy. For four years, countries in Europe, the Middle East and beyond have suffered setbacks from US foreign policy. One day, Trump was withdrawing US troops from Syria to the dismay of allies with troops in need, only to quickly reverse the tide. Putin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and countless Islamist fighters have benefited from the immediate and long-term confusion of America’s damaged reputation as a trusted ally.

Biden now runs the risk of running into a wall of friends in need, all eager to correct perceived mistakes. After US allies have endured a US foreign policy strategy that undermined traditional alliances and threatened the world order, it will be crucial to manage their expectations of a new presidency.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will also represent a new challenge for Biden. Erdogan is fueling conflicts in Syria, Libya and Armenia and even escalating tensions with Greece and France to divert attention from his failures at home.

Trump’s desire to disengage from the region had indicated to Erdogan that the United States would do nothing to force allies to restrict him. Since then, the Turkish leader has harmed the NATO alliance by buying Russian weapons and supporting attacks on the interests of American European and Middle Eastern allies in a way that is unlikely to have been tolerated by previous American administrations.

Trump is not the only one to blame for the power vacuum that made it possible: the outgoing president has only accelerated the drift of the Obama-Biden era disconnect. Over the next four years, Obama’s isolationist legacy will also haunt Biden’s relations with allies, particularly in the Middle East.

During his tenure, Obama abandoned America’s Middle Eastern partners, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt during the 2011 “Arab Spring”, urging other allies in the region that he feared that they too could be abandoned by Washington.

He withdrew American troops from Iraq and was withdrawing them in Afghanistan long before Trump took office. Its inability to punish Syrian dictator al-Assad for gassing his own people convinced even allies in Europe that the United States was in retreat and led several Gulf states to spend heavily on their own defense.

Trump’s tenacity towards Iran, on the contrary, has reaffirmed the Gulf allies that he supported them. But concerns that his missteps could spark a war encouraged the allies to seek support elsewhere anyway, deepening ties with Moscow and Beijing. Biden will now have to convince allies that the US is a stable long-term partner as he juggles the long-term threat posed by the rise of China.

In this, Biden is already behind the eight ball. This year’s significant turnout for Trump showed that 2016 was not an aberration: America remains deeply divided and another future U.S. president could potentially destroy Biden’s deals just as Trump destroyed those. by Obama. Although voters have selected a traditional candidate for the White House, the allies feel the chills and won’t calm down easily.

When he takes office next year, the road to further isolation will be well traveled. The new president will have to consider how far and how quickly he needs to retrace his steps to bring enough allies with him to put the world on the path he wants.

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To get an idea of ​​how difficult it will be, imagine his plan to contain Iran in a new multinational nuclear deal to replace the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which Trump scrapped.

How will Biden convince the UK, Germany and France, who invested unlimited energy in supporting the US to create the original deal, to join him in starting over? And that’s before considering the complication of getting Russia and China back to their side, as he and Obama did in 2015. For example, China is unlikely to accept a new deal with Iran until the US makes concessions. in the South China Sea and on trade.

The success of foreign policy will not just be winning the trust of friends and the acquiescence of enemies again. It will be about building international trust in America’s unity of purpose, a difficult task for such a divided nation. Biden may find that world order can no longer be restored the way he wants it.

After a few weeks in office, the road to the White House may seem, in hindsight, the easiest part of his journey as president.