What does the new Atlantic Charter signed by the UK and the US provide?
In the new Charter, the Anglo-American liberal-democratic ideological imprint is strong, as it can be seen that the recipient of this renewed alliance is Beijing. The article by Daniele Meloni
Boris Johnson has been waiting for this moment since he became prime minister. There are many expectations for the first G7 in the presence of the leaders of the West in Cornwall: the fight against the pandemic, the new problems linked to world security, an increasingly assertive Russia and China, the new green industrial revolution: the Prime Minister British opened the dance of the meeting between the greats yesterday and, as usual when there are facts concerning him, it was not a trivial day.
The most anticipated meeting was the one between BoJo and the new American President Biden. Since last summer, the Tory leader has taken decisive steps to meet Biden and get rid of that patina – albeit very apparent – of "Trumpism" that has marked his rise to the top of the party and the country. Yesterday there was the first face to face between the two, which reaffirmed – if ever there was a need – the solidity of the UK-US alliance in the present and also in the future. Of course, Biden expressed concern about the situation in Ulster and the diatribes between London and Brussels, but in the end, while Johnson called the BBC the "indestructible" alliance, London and Washington signed a new, ambitious, Atlantic Charter, which it recalls, also in the definition, the one signed 80 years ago by the predecessors of Johnson and Biden, namely Churchill and Roosevelt.
Four focal points of the Anglo-American commitment: the end of the pandemic, the new Green Revolution, the economic recovery and the increase in jobs. Could it be an advance of the free trade agreement in gestation between the two countries? Who knows. For the moment, Biden obtains confirmation of the intentions of his closest ally, while Johnson obtains public recognition of the American President as a reliable leader. Something that every British Premier has always sought from Attlee onwards.
In the new Charter, the Anglo-American liberal-democratic ideological imprint is strong, just as, reading between the lines, we see that the recipient of this renewed alliance is Beijing. London and Washington reaffirm their bond at a time when the Dragon's assertiveness – and its opposition to the West – is at the highest level. Biden follows Trump's lead in opposing China and pursuing protectionist trade policies within the US (Buy American), but deviates from the 45th President's line in terms of the means of opposition. If Trump had set the Western chancelleries on fire with his unilateralist rhetoric, Biden appealed to cooperation between democracies and the tools of multilateralism to curb the rise of Beijing.
Certainly, the world has changed a lot compared to 80 years ago. The current war is called Covid, and although Brexit and Trump have marked an important turning point in relations between Europe and the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-American world, the West is no longer divided between fascist regimes and liberal democracies. It remains to be seen whether Beijing's new containment measures – cybersecurity, deployment of military assets in the Indo-Pacific, trade war – will have the effect of returning China to a less competitive relationship with Washington and its allies.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/che-cosa-prevede-la-nuova-carta-atlantica-firmata-da-uk-e-usa/ on Fri, 11 Jun 2021 08:04:30 +0000.