The Trump mandate was made of procrastination, even surprising moments of complicity with Vladimir Putin. The Biden mandate begins on a completely different register against Russia, much stronger.
• Read also: Russian challenges begin for Biden
“I made it clear to President Putin, in a very different way from my predecessor, that the time when the United States submitted to Russia’s aggressive acts […] was over, ”the Democratic president said Thursday from the State Department.
Anxious to mark the contrast, the new tenant of the White House knows that he is playing, on this ground, on velvet: the ambiguous attitude of his predecessor vis-à-vis the strongman of the Kremlin had bristled all the American political class, including Republicans.
Donald Trump’s extraordinarily conciliatory tone at the Helsinki summit in July 2018 sparked an outcry within his own camp.
In a bizarre press conference, which will go down as one of the most controversial moments of his presidency, he seemed to place more value on the words of the former KGB strongman than on the unanimous conclusions of the intelligence agencies. American authorities on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Only two weeks after coming to power, Joe Biden wanted to signify the beginning of a chapter with a radically different tone.
If he claimed the extension of the US-Russian New Start disarmament agreement, “the last treaty between the two countries”, in the name of “nuclear stability”, he has not mince words against the Kremlin.
The United States must “be there in the face of the advance of authoritarianism,” said Biden, referring to “Russia’s desire to weaken [la] democracy [du pays]”.
Giving as an example interference in the American elections, cyberattacks or even “the poisoning of its citizens”, in reference to the opponent Alexeï Navalny, he did not announce concrete measures, but multiplied the warnings.
“We will not hesitate to make Russia pay a higher cost and to defend our interests”, he insisted.
“And we will be more effective against Russia if we work in coalition with our partners,” he added.
“Russia, Russia, Russia!”
“Russia, Russia, Russia!” exclaimed Donald Trump regularly, exasperated by the recurring questions about his surprising and erratic behavior vis-à-vis Vladimir Putin.
If the special prosecutor Robert Mueller has not, at the end of his investigation, gathered “evidence” of an understanding between Moscow and the Republican campaign team, the interference of Moscow during the 2016 presidential election poisoned his entire tenure.
Donald Trump’s behavior at major international meetings, where he never hesitated to exhaust America’s allies, also fueled criticism.
During the G20 summit in Osaka in 2019, he displayed a form of complicity with Vladimir Putin by joking about Russian interference in the elections and about “fake news“.
Questioned to know if he intended to ask Russia not to interfere in the next presidential election of 2020 – in which he was then officially a candidate – he turned, amused, to his Russian counterpart.
“No interference in the elections, president. No interference, ”he said with a smile, pretending to lecture him, index finger outstretched.
After having had the words translated, the latter smiled. The exchange had hardly helped to dispel the malaise surrounding relations between the president of the world’s largest power and the one who has ruled Russia with an iron fist for more than 20 years.
After the controversial Helsinki summit, Mr. Trump had persisted and signed by inviting the Russian president to the White House, before finally changing his mind in the face of the discomfort of the Republican camp.
No face-to-face between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin is planned at this stage.