Joe Biden has recently been announced the 46th President of the United States, meaning Donald Trump will not be serving a second term. Mr Biden and Mr Trump are two very different people which inevitably means two very different kinds of presidency. However, what will a Biden presidency mean for the UK?

Currently, Donald Trump is the incumbent President and so far, the UK has benefitted from Donald Trump as president. Mr Trump and Boris Johnson get along very well, and it has been said that Mr Johnson is "Britain Trump" and Trump’s "physical and emotional clone" by Biden himself. Mr Trump is also pro-Brexit, meaning it hasn’t been too hard trying to reach a UK-US trade deal so far, and this is an important thing to have when Britain does officially leave the European Union.

However, President Trump is also very isolationist with a strong America First policy. This has resulted in him withdrawing from the Paris Accord on tackling climate change. He’s stopped funding the World Health Organisation and greatly damaged the World Trade Organisation as well as calling NATO ‘obsolete’. Trump is an unpredictable ally, and it is always unclear as to what his next action will be.

Mr Biden will be inaugurated on 20th January 2021 and his presidential term will look quite different. His three main aims as soon as he gets into the White House are to one: get the pandemic under control, two: heal national divisions and three, revitalise the economy. America’s foreign policy is not a priority to start off with, however, Biden does plan to re-join the Paris climate agreement, the WHO, support the UN and re-engage in arms control treaties and NATO meaning America will become much a more internationalist country under Biden which will benefit the UK because these are also priorities for the UK.

The change in administration will mean some changes back here in Britain. Joe Biden has been very clear in his view that "Brexit is barking" and with the UK having fully left the EU by the time Mr Biden officially becomes the president, this could cause some problems. In a recent tweet, Biden has said, “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit,” “Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.” He is a very Irish American president meaning Brexit and the disruption of the Good Friday agreement could lead to no US-UK trade deal. Previously, the Obama/Biden presidency warned before the Brexit referendum in 2016 that if Britain were to leave EU and wanted to negotiate a new trade deal with the US, it would find itself ‘at the back of the queue’, and negotiations would have to start all over again regardless of what has already been discussed with Trump.

The British have a conception of a ‘special relationship’ with the United States, but it is unlikely Biden and Johnson will share an as close relationship as Trump and Johnson do, so this ‘special relationship’ will not be as strong as if Trump had been re-elected. This could cause future problems and make it harder for the UK to negotiate trade deals and similar, although this is not certain to happen.

Overall, the Biden presidency can result in one of two things: a loss in political affinity or a more predictable ally. Relations with the London will not be Biden’s top priority, and he seems to be more willing to repair relations with Paris and Berlin first and failing to negotiate a UK-US trade deal will result in embarrassment for our government, threatening Britain’s influence overseas and the popularity of the government at home. However, Biden is seen as a pragmatist, providing evidence he will be a more stable ally for Britain.