Europe is awaiting the upcoming US elections
It’s now less than a week until the US election will take place, and it is already clear to everyone that if Joe Biden wins, the United States' domestic and foreign policy will change. And it was during Donald Trump’s mandate when US foreign policy was very active. Needless to say, China and also Europe are closely watching what the election result will be. Joe Biden's win would be a pleasant change for the EU. However, a week before the election, Trump is gaining an edge in the still undecided states, which may turn the end result in his favor.
Hope for calmer foreign policy
In addition to Donald Trump's preliminary surveys, Joe Biden is winning everywhere so far, and a number of countries are preparing for coordinated action to change relations with the United States. In Europe, for example, country representatives expect relatively nervous relations to begin to change for the better. In the last 4 years, Trump has started a customs war with the EU and it can be expected that it would further shift, for example, the offensive against European cars, which, according to him, New York is full of. At the beginning of the pandemic, he also antagonized a number of states by closing its borders with the EU.
That is why there is hope among EU members that the change in the White House and the arrival of Democratic candidate Joe Biden could be positive for relations with the United States. Biden would certainly be more conventional which would also mean that diplomatic affairs would cease from being dealt with in the morning tweets. As we could witness during Trump’s term when the standards of traditional diplomacy were changed by announcing and commenting on various topics on Twitter. However, his approach was not always bad from the point of view of the United States, he knew what he was doing, but it was not always a conventional way of solving problems. For example, the imposition of customs duties on imports of steel and aluminum, which was not preceded by any diplomacy. This factor leads to the conclusion that his re-election is unlikely to be an improvement for the EU.
EU digital tax
Not even the "blue wave", which would give Democrats the power in the Senate as well, would not mean that changes would happen immediately. However, communication would definitely become much calmer. According to Goldman Sachs, Biden would immediately abolish import duties on China and refrain from more significant tariffs on imports from Europe. This would be especially welcomed by German carmakers, who have been threatened with tariffs by Trump since he was elected. In other areas, however, Biden might be as tough as Trump. The main problem would be the growth of digital taxes on large technology companies, which is being prepared by a number of EU countries. According to the White House, raising taxes is unfair to American companies and the dispute should be resolved by the OECD. However, the OECD agreement has been postponed to the middle of next year and will be very difficult to reach.
Chart: BBC Election Survey (Source: BBC.com)