The long nights spent watching the various US TV channels updating us on the progress of the presidential election count of the 46th American President ended with a victory for the Democratic candidate Joe Biden and for the Vice President-elect Kamala Harris: this is an important fact for the whole world, but especially for Europe and European workers, who welcome the successful election of Joe Biden as a very positive fact.
It is difficult to underestimate the influence of the United States on the Old Continent, both in terms of customs and technology. The USA are the first world economy, they are in first place as producers of oil, as military expenditure and as exporters of arms, but above all they play a primary role in trade with our continent. Before the unfortunate tariffs on European products, wanted by the Trump administration, were introduced, Europe boasted a primary role as a net exporter, with an important trade balance in our favor that ranked us in the very first places and practically made the Atlantic the main commercial outlet for our goods, as well as sealing that historic alliance which has contributed so much to over 70 years of peace on our continent. The Atlantic alliance has always been a strong bulwark of progress and prosperity in democracy. So everything that happens on the other side of the Atlantic affects us closely, with consequences that are reflected on a global scale.
All this in recent years, due to a rather short-sighted policy of the Trump administration, risked being questioned and the isolationism implemented by the Trump administration has favored the spread of populist and sovereignist behaviour which risked bringing back the solidarity state that has permeated Western democracy for hundreds of years.
In this very complicated phase with the times dictated by the expansion of the Covid 19 pandemic, Europe has managed to take a leap forward represented by the measures launched with the Sure, the Mes, the Next Generation Eu and the new US administration can accompany this vision of solidarity that is prevailing in Europe with a renewed spirit of Atlantic alliance that can face the titanic challenges of tomorrow starting with climate change with a spirit that seemed could no longer exist if we look back just one year.
Giving hope back to the young generations, hope for development and employment and for a future that is less uncertain and less marked by precariousness, where the strongest does not prevail, but forces join forces for a better tomorrow. The new Europe and the new America can and must make this effort, overcoming the logic of customs duties and the reconstruction of walls demolished like the one in Berlin in 1989. A tomorrow made of bridges and not of walls, where openness forms the basis for new opportunities, especially for those who have been excluded, starting from young people, from women who do not have gender equality , by the old too often left alone.
For this reason Cesi, an independent trade union, but not detached from politics, welcomes the election of Biden and Harris at the helm of the largest democracy in the world.
Internationally, Biden could mend ties with China, bring the United States back into the Paris climate agreement, but we are well aware that the concept of "America First" was not born with Trump, but had already been hovering in US society for some time. Just as we are aware that with the end of the cold war, which guaranteed the support of the USA to the democratic countries of Europe, today it will no longer be taken for granted as it was up until the 90s of the previous century. Europe will have to be able to conquer a central role on the world stage, strengthening the Atlantic axis by building new models of collaboration and convenience, giving the free trade area those opportunities for mutual convenience that also satisfy the expectations of millions of Americans as well as European citizens.
But the new spirit launched by European governments with the Next Generation EU could be able to meet the challenge of a new Atlantic alliance based no longer on assistance from the American giant, but on the basis of a new reciprocity and convenience for both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
It is certainly a complicated challenge, but the election of Biden and Harris allows us to be able to play it in search of a new frontier that redesigns a better world than the one that the future would have assigned us if the American electoral challenge had gone differently.
