LONDON – President Joe Biden’s conversation with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson last month is not among his most important political measures for most observers, but the fact that one of the American leader’s first phone calls after his inauguration was to the British leader was intensely felt in London.
“I was relaxed to see Prime Minister Johnson’s first contact with Joe Biden, which I think was comforting for many in London,” said Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a Washington-based think tank.
With which world leader does a new American president speak and when is he watched closely for clues about the priorities and preferences of the new government. The United Kingdom attaches more importance than most to transatlantic ties – what is known as a “special relationship”, an expression that British wartime leader Winston Churchill coined more than 70 years ago. Successive prime ministers rushed to be among the first to receive a phone call or a visit from a new president, signaling the countries’ lasting bond.
However, if Johnson will be able to maintain the UK’s close relationship with the United States, it has been a source of considerable anxiety here. Johnson worked hard to cultivate ties with former President Donald Trump, a fellow populist who shared his contempt for Europe. But Johnson has long been at odds with Biden, who once called him “Trump’s physical and emotional clone” and made restoring America’s international alliances a centerpiece of his foreign policy agenda.
“The next four years are a challenging time for the special relationship. The British government has to handle the relationship with the Biden presidency with care, ”said Gardiner.
Doing so will involve overcoming a good deal of personal and political animosity. Relations were strained in 2016, when then President Barack Obama warned that if Britain left the European Union, it would be “at the back of the queue” for any subsequent trade deal with the US – angering Johnson, then London Mayor, who had made Brexit his signature policy initiative.
Biden also warned Johnson last year against seeking a Brexit deal that would create a hard border between the UK and Ireland and undermine the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998.
Johnson also took offense at the removal of a bust of Churchill, his personal hero, from the Obama Oval Office, writing that the affront was a symptom of Obama’s “partially Kenyan” heritage, which could explain his “ancestral antipathy for the British empire. , “Because of his colonial rule over Kenya. Critics condemned the comment as racist.
Trump, on the other hand, encouraged Britain to leave the EU and suggested the prospect of a “massive” trade agreement with the US as a reward. Britain duly courted Trump, rolling out the red carpet and the royal family during a rare state visit in 2019. However, he got nothing in return.
A State Department spokesman said the countries share “a special relationship that is a fundamental aspect of US foreign policy and we will continue our robust cooperation with our strongest ally in our common priorities”.
The value that the United Kingdom places on its relationship with the United States means that such contempt is extremely painful. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, as Britain’s empire shrunk, it came to see its influence in Washington as a measure of its own global stature.
According to historian and journalist Max Hastings, however, the UK’s obsession with the special relationship leads to a distorted view of the nation’s status on the world stage today.
“Great Britain is an extremely good mid-level power with, in good times, a successful economy. But it is no longer one of the most important countries in the world, ”he said.
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In recent years, Britain has fought alongside American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has become a close partner in security and intelligence and has invested heavily in the American economy. However, Hastings insists that both sides were simply acting in their own national interest, not out of any common sentimentality.
“Never be fooled, the United States can do us a favor. This does not mean that there are reasons to complain about the United States, it is just being realistic, ”he said.
“I believe it is a terrible British addiction – especially an addiction to British Prime Ministers – to believe that there is a special relationship that will cause Americans to do us favors.”
With Biden focused on the coronavirus pandemic and strengthening the United States economy, this dynamic is unlikely to change anytime soon.
“I think there will be some disappointment in the UK that the trade deal is less of a priority for Joe Biden’s administration,” said Lewis Lukens, former deputy chief of mission of the United States Embassy in London and now a senior partner at Signum Global Advisors, a business consulting company focused on the impact of politics and politics.
Still, there are opportunities for Biden and Johnson to collaborate. In the call, the two leaders discussed working together to tackle climate change and the pandemic and expressed their common commitment to NATO. Britain and the United States also share similar views on the confrontation between Russia, Iran and China.
After the past four years, however, the UK may need to prove itself a worthy ally.
“Boris Johnson has to be ready to go to Joe Biden and say, ‘This is how we can play a key role in helping you meet your policy goals and meet the challenges you are interested in facing,'” said Lukens.
“But at the same time, it gives us the opportunity to show that we are still a relevant player in the world. ‘”