Antonio Navalón
Last Tuesday, February 7, the constitutional President of the United States of America gave his second State of the Union address. With Joe Biden, something very peculiar happens; it is evident that, either because of the passage of time or because of the circumstances under which he has had to serve as President, his vigorous leadership has not been appreciated except in specific and special situations. Last week Biden, in his eighties, having been a Senator for over thirty-five years and later Vice President, showed why he has been a leader during the positions he held.
In the ninety minutes that the ceremony lasted, Biden not only issued a series of words and plans announcing a better tomorrow without knowing how to solve the present -which is what is common in this type of speech- but he delivered a message as if he were forty years old instead of eighty. The U.S. leader did not only focus on defending his government – which was to be expected – but also made a deep and shared reflection with his dear compatriots, as they usually call each other, in order to evaluate and draw the positive conclusions about the time they are going through. A time in which, despite Donald Trump’s administration; despite all the Republican shenanigans; and, despite the more than two hundred and thirty congressmen and the fifty-one senators who gave him the majority of the Senate, respectively, Biden’s electoral victory in 2020 is still in doubt and a pending issue to be resolved.
Moreover, Biden’s was a speech easily understood by the American people. It was not full of promises, but rather a statement of realities and a reaffirmation of what the spirit and soul of the American people is made of. A speech is made up of form and substance; it must be acknowledged that both elements were delivered to perfection last week by the Pennsylvania-born leader. The event really came as a pleasant surprise at this point – and even more so considering the age and circumstances of the American leader – practically no one expected anything out of the ordinary and out of what we have been accustomed to in recent years in terms of leadership, not only in the United States, but also in the world as a whole. All’s well that ends well, and the intervention – despite the low level and lack of collaboration, and the refusal of some Republicans to work together for the good of their country – it must be recognized that it began and ended well.
We must not forget that this eighty-year-old Biden is also the man who will deliver the tanks to Poland and who has been so decisive in the outcome and development of the war in Ukraine, and who, together with Germany, has sought to isolate and confront Vladimir Putin himself more and more directly. He is the man who – no matter what that act might trigger – shoots and knocks down a Chinese hot air balloon and, given his actions and behavior, is someone who is defying what you would normally expect from a person at that age. I have no special regard for him, but I have to admit that at least – except for some particular actions and despite not arousing in me strong feelings of admiration about his work – he has done well up to this point, even with his low levels of popularity that he has in front of his society.
As for other issues, let’s call a spade a spade. While Biden – and in part also Trudeau – has sought to make such an important and essential agreement for the subcontinent that is North America bear fruit and enhance the way of working and trading in the region, his Mexican counterpart has not done the same. The United States and Canada already know and are aware that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the President of the 4T, tries to make them believe that he agrees even though he has no intention of fulfilling his obligations to them. In the face of every approach agreed upon in the summits or in the meetings held, the leader answers evasively and does so as if he were dictating one of his mañaneras (daily moorning press conferences), hoping that his counterparts will have the same patience as the people of Mexico.
Without a doubt, our President does not understand the difference between a person who lives in Alaska and one who lives in Michoacán, nor does he seem to care since he speaks to everyone equally and, more importantly, López Obrador expects us all to respond to him in the same manner and with the same veneration. Although maybe the one who is right is Joe Biden since he is aware that there is a lot at stake, that the easy thing to do is to break and tell him that he is tired of him taking advantage, but that would lead to the only thing that is not possible in this equation, which is that the CUSMA/USMCA/TMEC ends up being a failure. I have already said it, and I repeat it: the CUSMA/USMCA/TMEC is not possible without Mexico, and Mexico is not possible without the CUSMA/USMCA/TMEC.
The Agreement between Mexico, the United States, and Canada is the most important agreement in recent years, not only for the regional economy, but also for the world economy. To put some figures in perspective and measure its importance, the bloc made up of the three North American countries accounts for 28 percent of the world’s GDP, with trade operations of around three million dollars per minute and a domestic market of four hundred and ninety-six million inhabitants. While it is not the world’s largest market – which is made up of the fifteen member countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and which is made up of a domestic market of over 2.2 billion people – it is on its way to becoming one. It is for different reasons, such as, for example, the growing importance and relevance of nearshoring, the development, and growth of the semiconductor industry, or simply because of the proximity, connectivity, and facilities that the region offers.
Today, everything has changed. Missiles, airplanes, tanks, and now even weather research balloons, according to Beijing, are in the skies. But also in the skies is the opportunity to create other economic units to take over from the long outdated policy adopted after the end of World War II and to create institutions or mechanisms to replace the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, whose functions have clearly outgrown their capacities.
Even in the Bible it is written that in order to say yes, one must first say no. Last Tuesday’s State of the Union address is, above all things, a turning point in modern American history. The American nation cannot be in the hands of either Biden or Trump, we need a new political generation that can carry forward the task of creating a new social and economic reality as embodied in the CUSMA/USMCA/TMEC.
Nor is it possible to think that those who rule the world can afford to bring societies face to face with their internal contradictions. The problem is not who is in charge of the Republican or Democratic Party, the problem is what they are exercising that leadership for. This issue in itself justifies the need to have a new generation of politicians at the helm of countries.
For the first time since 2012, next year, the presidential elections in Mexico and the United States will coincide again. In the Mexican case, the follow-up of the 4T and its success or failure or the emergence of an opposition that so far does not seem to show clear signs of life will be put to the test. In the U.S. case, the elections will show whether Donald Trump’s efforts to return to the White House -despite what happened with the assault on Capitol Hill- were enough or not. The issue will not be between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, but rather the question will be who truly has governing experience. Moreover, in that race for the Republican presidential nomination, more and more consideration is beginning to be given to the efficient administrator and governor that is Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
One of the great challenges of the time we will face is to know how we will place in the attic of history such significant groups as the Democrats represented by Biden or that outburst of American history represented by the populist Donald Trump.
We need leaders, whether they are a hundred, eighty, or forty years old. I don’t really know at what age one stops being a leader, although, from what I saw last Tuesday, February 7, Joe Biden has repositioned himself as a leader at a time when the world needs him most. The world needs leadership with clear ideas, and tangible proposals that are no longer accompanied by empty promises and words full of hope, but empty of will. Words are useless in the face of the hunger of the people and the failure of the systems.
Someone who has spent so many years of his life sitting in the armchairs of Capitol Hill knows that American politics can only be made and implemented by agreeing on budgets and that money equals success and success is achieved by carrying out plans within proposed budgets. Trump, like other modern rulers, chose, above all, the path of hatred, division, and contempt. In contrast, in his State of the Union address, Biden offered a truce to the Republicans and the option of working together for the good and prosperity of their country. The U.S. leader proposed a new era of government guided by bipartisanship, but, more importantly, he wanted to close once and for all the habit of using confrontation as a way of governing and in which the word politics was confused with destruction.
In some places, confrontation or disagreement against those in power or between the parties involved ends up being the reason for public and open disqualification or even physical disappearance. However, Biden’s was a speech of reconciliation, not only with the Republican Party, but with American society as a whole, seeking to replace confrontation with a common effort to make America the leader it once was.
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