BRUSSELS — In the “America First” landscape that President Trump created, Joseph R. Biden Jr. was an outdated romantic trans-Atlanticist. So there is relief in Europe about having a well-disposed friend in the White House who is more likely to support than to berate, harangue and insult. A former French ambassador to Washington, Gérard Araud, said that “every single European leader has had an appalling conversation with Trump.” Referring to the German chancellor and the former British prime minister, Mr. Araud said: “He insulted Angela Merkel, he insulted Theresa May. And it’s over.”But there will still be wariness among European leaders — about what Mr. Biden may ask of them, especially in the knowledge that he may be a one-term president and that the populist impulse that animated Trumpism has hardly gone away. Dominique Moïsi, a French analyst with the Paris-based nonprofit Institut Montaigne, said, “We should not underestimate the sense of relief and we should not overestimate the sense that things will change very much.”

Source: New York Times November 08, 2020 16:13 UTC