Joe Biden received a cool reception from Europe this month at both the Group of 7 meeting and the Munich Security Conference. “America is back,” the new president declared, but no one on the Continent seemed to particularly care.
Biden’s efforts to reinvigorate the transatlantic alliance fell flat, especially when he talked about containing militant China. China may be a neo-totalitarian state committing genocide and other crimes against humanity while invading its neighbors with impunity, but in some quarters that does not seem to matter. What matters is that last year, China surpassed the U.S. to become the European Union’s largest merchandise trading partner.
