'Stop the bleeding': Biden reaches out to Europe, but Trump's damage has been done

[DonViejo]

The new administration may be ready to embrace multilateralism, but allies and partners aren’t so quick to jump in bed with Washington.

By RYAN HEATH

02/19/2021 08:08 AM EST

President Joe Biden and his team are fanning out across the West’s leading institutions and forums to announce that “America is back.”

They’re set to be greeted with welcome relief by allies, who — in the face of a global recession and pandemic, not to mention PTSD from the Trump years — appear happy for now to table complicated negotiations over shared challenges and thorny points of divergence.

“These next four days will set the tone” for the following four years, said Alexander Stubb, who spent nearly a decade dealing with then-Vice President Biden, including a stint as Finland’s prime minister.

Biden is guaranteed to get hearty applause while addressing G-7 leaders and the Munich Security Conference on Friday, but his administration should expect a rockier road ahead.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/19/biden-europe-meeting-g7-leaders-470104

[tanyev]

1. I think it was a wake-up call for them how vulnerable America's system is to totalitarianism.

Especially when one of the political parties is fully complicit in the takeover. They can no longer assume that most things will continue as usual regardless of who is in the White House. And neither can we, unfortunately.

[area51]

2. +1 n/t