Amid a stuttering performance by President Joe Biden in Thursday night’s presidential debate, former President Donald Trump caused concern among America’s allies with a simple shrug of the shoulders.
Trump has regularly disparaged NATO and even threatened to withdraw the United States from it, and during the debate he did nothing to assuage European concerns about his antipathy toward the military alliance.
When asked by Biden whether he would withdraw from NATO, Trump did not answer, but shrugged.
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“I was already very concerned before this debate and I am even more concerned 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 tools to undermine NATO.”
At the heart of NATO is Article 5 of its Charter, which obligates each member state to defend all other members. “Deterrence is all about credibility, and deep down, Article 5 has always been what you make of it,” 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, she said, fear that he might try to establish bilateral relations 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,” Grand said.
Trump boasted Thursday evening that he had forced European countries to increase their military spending, although it has grown even further under Biden. 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 becomes president, “we have to make sure we can defend Europe with less America.”
NATO supporters weren’t the only international observers nervous about the debate. The back-and-forth between a blustering Trump and a faltering Biden had analysts worried — and not just about who might win the November election.
Sergey Radchenko, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, wrote on the social media platform X: “This election does more to discredit American democracy than Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping could ever hope to do,” 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, from a rising China and a nuclear North Korea recently strengthened by Putin; in Europe by the Russian war against Ukraine; and in the Middle East, where the war between Israel and Hamas threatens to spread to southern Lebanon and even Iran.
There was little substantive foreign policy in the noisy debate. Trump continued to insist without explanation that he could have prevented Putin from invading Ukraine, or Hamas from invading Israel, and that he could have ended both conflicts quickly.
Biden cited his efforts to rally allies to help Ukraine and confront Russia. “I have 50 other countries around the world supporting Ukraine, including Japan and South Korea,” he said.
For some, the debate made a Trump presidency, already considered a strong possibility, seem like a likelihood, said François Heisbourg, a French analyst. “So on all issues, the debate is a confirmation of European concerns, and some of it is already integrated into people’s thinking.”
“People are hearing Trump say he wants to cut aid to Ukraine, so this is going to be at the center of the debate,” he said, along with Trump’s stated preference for Putin as a strong leader.
On Israel and the Gaza Strip, however, “I’m not sure it will make much difference,” Heisbourg said. “You can’t move the embassy to Jerusalem twice.”
In addition to existing concerns about the unpredictable Trump, which the debate only confirmed, there are new concerns about Biden’s ability to govern. One of the harshest assessments came from Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. In a post on social media, he compared Biden to Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor who “ruined his succession by passing the baton to his worthless son Commodus, whose disastrous rule marked the beginning of Rome’s decline.”
“It’s important to manage the ride into the sunset,” Sikorski added.
In Ukraine, the debate was still being cheered on Friday.
Referring to Biden, Bogdan Butkevych, a 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 couldn’t do it. Accordingly, the chances of his replacement by another Democratic candidate are increasing.”
Some found some solace in Trump’s statement that he found it unacceptable for the Kremlin to hold on to occupied territories. The Kiev Independent, a Ukrainian news outlet, ran a headline that read: “Trump rejects Putin’s peace terms as Biden unnerves Democrats.”
Russian media portrayed the debate as a sign of American weakness and disarray. The result “is good for us,” Dmitry Novikov, a Russian lawmaker, said on a talk show on state television on Friday. “Destabilization within an opponent is always a good thing.”
In Asia, the debate has raised serious questions about how U.S. policy might affect stability. Trump’s tenure has deeply shaken 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 rebuild ties with Washington.
“It was clearly a victory for Trump and a nail in the coffin for the Biden campaign,” said Lee Byong-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul, South Korea.
“We must now brace ourselves for a second Trump administration,” he added.
In Japan, a key U.S. ally in Asia, officials have been almost adamant that they are happy to work with whomever the United States chooses. But Trump’s comments during the debate that he doesn’t want to spend money defending allies are likely to rekindle 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 Trump during his presidency, the Indian establishment has seen in Biden a steady hand that understands how alliances work and how to contain geopolitical risks.
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 hedging with China now,” she said. “Because you don’t really know what’s going to happen with the U.S.”
In China, the presidential debate was a popular topic on the social media platform Weibo. Official Chinese media outlets largely played it straight, reporting each candidate’s comments — and lack of a handshake — without adding much commentary.
Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, said the debate only confirmed something the Chinese government has long believed: Regardless of who becomes the next president, U.S. policy toward China will likely 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 has served as foreign minister and ambassador to Thailand for Thailand. He added that countries in Southeast Asia should have their own views on foreign policy.
“Why should I wait until Trump is bad?” he said.
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