The transition team said Joe Biden plans to work with Europeans to fight the Covid-19 pandemic
Washington:
Leaders of close U.S. allies telephoned President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday and pledged to work together, but in an extraordinary hiatus, top U.S. diplomat Mike Pompeo insisted Donald Trump would remain in power.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel all congratulated Biden, who a week earlier had beaten Trump in the presidential election.
“I’m letting them know America is back. We’re going to be back in the game. It’s not America alone,” Biden told reporters in his home state of Delaware.
The transition team said Biden plans to work with Europeans on tackling the Covid-19 pandemic as well as climate change – one of the many areas where Trump differed sharply from the allies.
During the call with Merkel, who has been brutalized by Trump for her welcome to migrants and Germany’s modest defense spending, Biden in a statement “praised her leadership” and called for “revitalizing transatlantic relations, including through NATO and the EU. “
Johnson, who had a warm relationship with Trump, spoke for 20 minutes with Biden and later wrote on Twitter that he hoped to work with him on climate change, “promoting democracy and building back better after the pandemic,” in using the Democrat’s slogan. campaign.
All fellow leaders of the Group of Seven Industrialized Democracies have congratulated Biden, as have some of Trump’s closest allies, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
U.S. media concluded on Saturday that Biden enjoys an unassailable lead in major states as well as a major advantage in the national popular vote.
But Trump refused to concede and swore legal challenges, claiming without evidence that there had been massive voter fraud.
Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, has made it clear that Trump’s position is official government policy in dismissing the question of whether he will cooperate with Biden’s transition team.
“There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration,” Pompeo said in a sometimes grueling press conference.
He said “the world should have full confidence” in the workings of the US government before and after the January 20 inauguration.
Asked whether the United States can still issue statements in favor of free elections around the world, Pompeo called the question “ridiculous” and said the United States was following standard procedures.
– Pompeo to visit his allies –
Trump’s failure to concede has no legal force per se. But the General Service Administration, the generally low-profile agency that manages Washington’s bureaucracy, refused to approve the transition, delaying finance and security briefings that would have allowed Biden to set up the next administration.
An American commission which investigated the attacks of September 11, 2001 had warned that the presidential transitions posed security risks, after the shortening of the period of preparation of George W. Bush following contested elections.
Pompeo was making his first public comment on the election result. A day earlier, Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper whom he had long considered insufficiently loyal.
Pompeo’s position will be put to the test as he departs on Friday for a tour of seven countries of allies who praised Biden.
He will travel first to Paris and then to Istanbul, followed by the former Soviet republic of Georgia. He will then travel to Jerusalem and three Arab Gulf allies: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday became the latest leader to congratulate Biden and urged closer ties despite the president-elect’s wishes to step up pressure on Erdogan, whom he described as an “autocrat”.
Russia, China, Mexico and Brazil are among the only countries not to congratulate Biden.
Biden, a longtime Irish-American passionate about peace in Northern Ireland, also spoke to Irish leader Michael Martin on Tuesday and a day earlier had telephone talks with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is expected be a close ally of the new president.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
