How Will Biden Work For Africa?

When US president-elect Joe Biden takes office in 2021, he will have to repair the foreign policy damage his predecessor caused. Where South Africa and Africa will feature on that list of priorities is not clear.

- Peter Fabricius

Day one, if I win, I’m going to be on the phone with our Nato allies saying, ‘We’re back,’” US president-elect Joe Biden told Arizona TV in July. That really ought to be a group call that the whole world joins. For, with a few notable exceptions – like his fellow-populist, Jair Bolsanaro, president of Brazil, and no doubt his chum, Russian president Vladimir Putin – the globe is immeasurably relieved at what it hopes is the impending departure from the White House of Donald Trump – the aggressive and offensive unilateralist who turned his back on the world.

That departure, however, is not quite assured yet, as Trump refuses to concede defeat, even as Biden has racked up 306 votes (at the time of writing) in the electoral college – 36 more than he needs. Trump’s challenge to the results in five battleground states will, at the very least, ensure a difficult transition and distract Biden from his difficult task of repairing damaged relations at home and abroad.

And even some sober analysts still fear that Trump may yet pull off some legal or political trick to stay in office. But if Trump fails, as seems likely, Biden’s foreign policy priority will be to restore America’s relations with its allies. Its European Nato allies feared the organisation would not survive a second Trump term. “We need a leader who will be ready on day one to pick up the pieces of Donald Trump’s broken foreign policy and repair the damage he has caused around the world,” Biden tweeted earlier this year.