In its language of democratic renewal, in its parade of household-name stars, in its diversity of faces and voices, and in its absence of incident, the inauguration of President Joe Biden tried to show off a United States that had returned to normal.

Unlike after the inauguration of Barack Obama a dozen years ago, the United States will not quickly return from a period of chaos and divisiveness to being an example of stable democracy or a reliable partner in global endeavours.

Four years of president Donald Trump, and two weeks consisting of shocking violence followed by fear, have turned the United States into quite another kind of example?

As he spoke, though, it was clearly visible to anyone watching the inauguration on the world’s screens that the United States is nowhere close to being the same place it was in 2016.

Biden and his Democratic Party’s twin congressional majorities will be able to overcome many of those challenges within the United States.

Trump was able to overstep the bounds of behaviour, decency and morality in democratic rule, means that partner countries such as Canada will have to assume, for decades, that this sort of democratic collapse is always possible in the United States.

Even in conventionally pro-American parts of the world, recent surveys show that citizens and leaders are no longer willing to automatically trust the United States over other major powers, or view its democratic system as a barrier to it becoming a dangerous country.

“The majority of Europeans endorse Biden’s agenda, but they fear that the divided American nation could prevent Biden from realizing it,” Ivan Krastev, head of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, said in an interview from his office in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Biden] can help America make a comeback as the pre-eminent global leader.” In a major change of opinion, most Europeans no longer believe Europe should rely on the United States for its defence and believe the U.S.

Biden’s inauguration, whose existence could stymie the new President’s efforts to bring dozens of countries together in a multilateral approach to confronting China

In a turn to self-interested realism, the bloc’s 27 countries viewed China and the United States as gambles with equal odds