Biden Presidency and Its Effect on United States Foreign Policy

By Helarion Gema Bahagia

Recently, the world has been in a frenzy with the presidential election of the United States. It was the bitter election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that left the world's eyes on it.

After nearly 50 years in public office as a senate, and a lifelong ambition to become president, Joe Biden has won and is poised to occupy the White House. Many of Joe Biden's work programs are of particular concern to developing countries awaiting America's Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which has been closed since Trump took office as president.

Meanwhile, FDI itself is the key to international economic integration because foreign investment creates a stable and durable relationship between the two spheres of the country's economy. This investment, commonly called direct global investment, is also an important channel for the transfer of technology between countries.

According to John W. Head the return on investment, especially foreign investment: a). creating job openings for residents of the host country so that they can increase their income and standard of living; b). Creating investment opportunities for residents of the host country so that they can share from the income of new companies; c). increase exports from the host country, bring in additional income from outside that can be used for various purposes for the benefit of its residents; d). produce a transfer of technical training and knowledge that can be used by residents to develop companies and other industries; e). expanding the potential privacy of the host country by producing local goods to replace imported goods; f). produce additional tax opinions that can be used for various purposes, for the benefit of the residents of the host country; g). Make the resources of the host country both natural and human resources, in order to better its utilization than before.

The election of former U.S. vice president Joe Biden could increase FDI or foreign direct investment from the U.S. to several countries, especially developing countries. This can be seen from Biden's statements regarding several facilities regarding minimum corporate tax on companies outside the U.S. that would encourage U.S. FDI in some countries.

Biden's victory as American president will also make markets more confident because the sentiment of a trade war between the U.S. and China will subside. That way, international trade will rise so that it can trigger production and price increases.

This will then spread to financial markets, and market confidence will encourage greater risk appetite so that the volume of transactions and indices in financial markets will increase. In the medium to long term, Biden's victory is expected to have a positive impact on improving the global investment climate damaged by the U.S.-China trade war.

In addition, the United States' policy on the Middle East is also inseparable from how it leads the United States. Moreover, Biden had previously been Barrack Obama's vice president. Thus, he has little experience in reading the Situation of the Middle East and what efforts he will make during his time as president of the United States.

The election of Joe Biden as President of the United States will certainly have an impact on Israel and the Middle East region. Joe Biden's victory as President of the United States will force Israel to open a new dialogue on its approach to the Palestinian solution.

Biden's victory could seem to have an impact on Israel's domestic political situation. There are two possibilities related to Israel's domestic politics that will take place during his leadership. First, Israel's national unity government continues, and Benjamin Netanyahu will continue to serve as prime minister. Thus, it was Benny Gantz's turn as prime minister that was held in turns between Netanyahu and Gantz. Second, the national unity government will be dissolved and held early elections in Israel. Benny Gantz's Blue-And-White Party hopes to get a better vote in the early elections by using Joe Biden as the new president of the United States.

The dynamics of the Gulf will also change drastically. Biden has promised to abide by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear deal.

Biden was vice president when the U.S. co-signed the JCPOA with Russia, Britain, France, China and Germany in 2015. In 2018, however, Trump backed away from the deal, which is seen as too favourable to Iran.

Biden's stance on returning to the JCPOA reinforced the fact that Trump's pressure for Iran to move to the negotiating table failed miserably even though Iran's economy was badly hit. However, Iran's response to Trump's policies has made the Gulf even more vulnerable.