Will Joe Biden be the last trans-Atlantic US president?

With only a few months left in office, US President Joe Biden is going on a farewell tour. Having postponed his original visit because of Hurricane Milton, he was in Germany last week.

Biden was the first US president since George H. W. Bush to be awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who presented the award to Biden on Friday, called the US president a  "beacon of democracy," commending his "decades-long dedication to the trans-Atlantic alliance," his "outstanding political leadership in Europe's most dangerous moment" and his "lasting moral example of service, sincerity and decency."

The US-Europe relationship, and particularly the US-Germany relationship, has been near and dear to Biden. The end of his presidency will mark the end of an era. But will he be the last trans-Atlantic president?

"I think that's a fair assessment," Michelle Egan, a professor at American University in Washington and an expert on US-European relations, told DW. "That's probably because of his long engagement through NATO, through the Munich Security Conference, through being on the [US Senate] Foreign Relations Committee and knowing a lot of leaders in Europe prior to becoming president."

What made Biden a trans-Atlantic president?

Biden was born in 1942 and grew up in a country that helped West Germany rebuild after World War II. After the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, he witnessed West Germany become one of the US' most important partners in the Cold War.

"He has been in politics since 1972 and was clearly shaped in its early days, in the foreign policy realm at least, by the experience of the Cold War and Germany being the centerpiece of that conflict," said Peter Sparding of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC).

Biden's foreign policy experience was also crucial when he was vice president under Barack Obama, from 2009 to 2017.

"Obama was very limited in terms of his foreign policy knowledge," said Egan. "That was the reason Biden was put on the ticket. Biden had the connections, the knowledge, the briefings due to his Senate role."

She added that Obama was very popular in Europe because he helped to rebuild the trans-Atlantic relationship after Bush's presidency, but it was Biden who had an emotional connection to the continent.

Parallels between Germany and the US

Under the Biden administration, Germany has been an important partner for the US. The two countries are among the biggest supporters of Ukraine in its war against Russia, and have most emphasized Israel's right to self-defense in the current Middle East conflict. 

Egan pointed out that in addition to similar positions on the international stage, the pair face similar domestic challenges. "In both the United States and Germany, there has been a fracturing of politics," she said.

In the US, Democrats and Republicans form two ideologically distinct camps that are bitterly opposed. In Germany, the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has also shown a political divide.

"Both of them are [also] dealing with the issues of borders and border controls," said Egan.

Germany tightened its migration policies in August after a Syrian man was suspected of stabbing three people to death in Solingen, a city in western Germany. That included controversial border controls on all its borders, even those it shares with other EU countries.

In the US, Egan said, Kamala Harris, the current vice president and the Democratic Party's nominee for the upcoming presidential election, has repeatedly stumbled over immigration policy and security at the US border with Mexico. At the beginning of his presidency, Biden effectively gave Harris the task of tackling the root causes of migration from Central America. In his election campaign, Donald Trump, Biden's predecessor and the Republican presidential nominee, has repeatedly criticized irregular migrants and blamed them for many of the problems in the US.

Last trans-Atlantic president?

Biden is also seen as the last great trans-Atlantic president, because Germany is increasingly less important to US foreign policy than in the past. Sparding, the CSPC analyst, pointed out that in the future, Germany will not be able to rely on the US as a defender of European security.

"The German-American relationship will be different in the future, no matter who the president will be. The US is orienting itself toward the Indo-Pacific and reacting to the rise of what it views as its peer competitor in China. So there will be more expectations […]  like [that] Germany take up more responsibilities in Europe or around Europe."

This article was originally written in German and published on October 17, before Biden's visit to Germany. It was updated on October 21 to include remarks from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. It also originally made an inaccurate statement about Harris' migration assignment, due to a translation error. DW apologizes for the error.

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