While President Biden underperformed during the presidential debate on Thursday night, former President Donald J. Trump caused unrest among America’s allies with a simple shrug.
Trump has frequently spoken negatively about NATO, even threatening to pull the United States out of it. During the debate, he did nothing to assuage European concerns about his antipathy toward the military alliance.
When Mr. Biden asked whether he would withdraw from NATO, Mr. Trump did not answer, but shrugged.
“I was very worried before this debate and I am even more worried now,” said Jana Puglierin, director of the German office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Trump may or may not want to officially leave NATO, but he has all the means to undermine NATO.”
The core of NATO is Article Five of its Charter, which obliges each member state to defend all other member states. “Deterrence is all about credibility, and deep down, Article Five has always been what you make of it,” Ms. Puglierin said. “So it depends on whether the American president makes it a credible threat.”
Given Trump’s skepticism about alliances, European countries that rely on the promise of American protection worry that he could try to establish bilateral relationships with Europe “and make them transactional.”
Camille Grand, a former assistant secretary general of NATO, said that in a second term, Trump would be surrounded by people “who want to translate his instincts into policy instead of saying, ‘This is a bad idea, Mr. President. ‘”
“But the worst thing is its unpredictability, and Europe is at war,” he added. In peacetime there is always another summit or an opportunity to build relationships, he said. “But in a war, if he suddenly proposes an overnight peace settlement or something that makes the American security guarantee hollow, that’s much harder to manage,” Mr. Grand.
Trump boasted Thursday evening that he had forced European countries to increase their military spending, although it has grown even further under Biden. Mr Grand said Europeans already understand that they need to do more for their own defense, and in fact they are spending $130 billion more every year than in 2014, he said.
But whoever the president is, “we must ensure that we can defend Europe with less America.”
NATO supporters weren’t the only international observers unnerved by the debate. The back-and-forth between a blustering Mr. Trump and a wavering Mr. Biden had analysts worried — and not just about who might win the November election.
Sergey Radchenko, historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, wrote on X“This election discredits American democracy more than Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping could ever have hoped for,” referring to the leaders of Russia and China, America’s most powerful rivals.
“I am concerned about the image that is being projected to the outside world,” he continued. “It is not an image of leadership. It is an image of terminal decline.”
Whoever becomes president, the United States faces major global challenges. In Asia due to the rise of China and a nuclear North Korea recently strengthened by Putin; in Europe by Russia’s war against Ukraine; and in the Middle East, where Israel’s war against Hamas threatens to spread to southern Lebanon and even Iran.
There was little substantive foreign policy in the noisy debate. Mr. Trump insisted without explanation that he could have prevented Mr. Putin from invading Ukraine, or Hamas from invading Israel, and that he could have ended both conflicts quickly.
Mr. Biden cited his efforts to bring allies together to help Ukraine and confront Russia. “I have 50 other countries around the world supporting Ukraine, including Japan and South Korea,” he said.
To some, the debate seemed like a Trump presidency, already considered a strong possibility, a likelihood, said François Heisbourg, a French analyst. “So on all counts the debate is a confirmation of European concerns, and some of that has already been incorporated into people’s thinking.”
“People hear Trump saying he wants to cut aid to Ukraine, so that will be central to the debate,” he said, along with Trump’s stated preference for Putin as a strong leader.
As for Israel and Gaza, however, “I’m not sure this will make much difference,” Mr. Heisbourg said. “You cannot move the embassy to Jerusalem twice.”
In addition to existing concerns about the unpredictable Mr. Trump, which the debate only confirmed, there are also new concerns about Mr. Biden’s ability to govern. One of the harshest assessments came from Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister. In a post on social media he said: compared Mr. Biden to Marcus Aureliusthe Roman emperor who “ruined his succession by passing the baton to his worthless son Commodus, whose disastrous reign marked the beginning of Rome’s decline.”
“It is important to manage the ride into the sunset,” Mr. Sikorski added.
There was already a loud commotion in Ukraine about the debate on Friday.
Regarding Mr. Biden, Bogdan Butkevycha popular radio host, wrote on social media: “His main task was to convince voters of his energy and willingness to govern.” But, he added, “He was unable to do so. Accordingly, the chances of him being replaced by another Democratic candidate increase.”
Some took some comfort in Mr. Trump’s statement that he did not find it acceptable for the Kremlin to maintain occupied territories. The Kiev Independent, a Ukrainian news outlet, headlined: “Trump rejects Putin’s peace terms, while Biden unnerves Democrats.”
Russian media portrayed the debate as a sign of American weakness and disarray. The outcome “is good for us,” Dmitry Novikov, a Russian lawmaker, said on a state television talk show Friday. “Destabilization within an adversary is always good.”
In Asia, the debate again raised serious questions about how American policies could affect stability. Trump’s term deeply shook alliances in the region, and countries hoping the United States would balance China’s influence and undermine North Korea’s nuclear ambitions have spent the past four years trying to shore up ties with Washington. to recover.
“It was clearly a victory for Trump and a nail in the coffin of Biden’s campaign,” said Lee Byong-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul.
“We must now brace for a second Trump administration,” he added.
In Japan, a key U.S. ally in Asia, officials have almost always been zealous in declaring their willingness to work with whomever the United States chooses. But Trump’s comments during the debate that he does not want to spend money defending allies are likely to revive fears that he sees international relations as transactional rather than sustainable.
“I suspect Japanese policymakers are thinking, ‘Okay, it’s very likely to be Trump, so we need to strengthen the institutional ties as much as possible so he can’t undo them,’” said Koichi Nakano, a political scientist. at Sophia University in Tokyo. “That’s like tying yourself to a mast that might sink soon, so it’s a false illusion of security.”
India has worked in recent years to overcome a long history of mistrust and expand military and trade ties with Washington. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi enjoyed warm relations with Mr Trump during his presidency, the Indian establishment has seen in Mr Biden a steady hand that understands how alliances work and how to contain geopolitical risks.
Dr. Tara Kartha, a former senior official in India’s National Security Council, noted that Trump is unpredictable and could change his position — just as his current tough approach to China would change if Beijing offered him better trade terms. That uncertainty makes calculations difficult for India, which shares a border with China and a long-standing rivalry with Beijing.
“We are now hedging with China,” she said. “Because you’re not really sure what’s going to happen to the US.”
In China, the presidential debate was a top trending topic on the social media platform Weibo. Official Chinese media outlets largely played it straight, reporting each candidate’s comments — and their lack of a handshake — without adding much commentary.
Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, said the debate has reinforced something the Chinese government has long thought: No matter who the next president is, U.S. policy toward China is likely to only harden.
What became clear after Thursday’s debate was that few Asian analysts were optimistic about U.S. election options.
“Where are the good? Where are the brave?” said Kasit Piromya, who served as Thailand’s foreign minister and ambassador to Washington. He added that Southeast Asian countries should have their own vision of foreign policy.
“Why should I wait until Trump is bad?” he said.
The reporting was provided by Damien cave, Sui Lee Wee, Choe Sang-Hun, Vivian Wang, Camille Elemia, Mujib Mashal, Segolene Le Stradic, Marc Santora And Oleg Matsnev.
