 Michael for that kind introduction. It's a pleasure to be here. I wish I was in Dublin in person rather than just talking over the internet. But given COVID, I guess we don't have much choice at this point in time. What I'd like to do this morning here, this afternoon, your time. So I'd like to make a handful of preliminary points about President-elect Biden's position and President Trump's position as the head of American foreign policy, some contextual points. And then I wanna talk about differences in their policies and similarities in their policies on the issues of China, Europe and the Middle East. So just to operate up at around 60,000 feet and make some conceptual points. First thing you wanna remember about President Trump is that when he ran in 2016, he ran not only against the Democratic Party, he ran against the Republican Party as well as an outsider. President Trump, when he was a candidate was a true outsider. He ran the table in the Republican primaries and then he defeated Hillary Clinton. In the general election. So he is a very unusual character. Now, two things flow from this. One, when President-elect Biden moves into the White House and brings a whole group of advisors with him, it will be the return of the same people that President Trump ran against in 2016. And you wanna understand that President Trump ran on the grounds that the foreign policy establishment, both Democrats and Republicans had pursued a bankrupt foreign policy and that the American people should vote for him because they should want change in foreign policy. And Trump won. This tells you that when President-elect Biden moves into the White House and he brings the same old advisors with him, these are advisors, this is a group of people who are the stewards of American foreign policy that screwed up enough that President Trump got elected. You just wanna understand that. There's not a lot of enthusiasm in the American body politic for President-elect Biden and the advisors he's bringing in with him. Second thing you wanna remember is that because Trump ran against both the Republican and foreign policy establishments, that tells you that there was a lot of agreement between the two political parties on foreign policy before Trump came along. The real disconnect in the United States in 2016 was between the elites and the public. The public voted for Trump because the public was dissatisfied with American foreign policy. But the Republicans and the Democrats in 2016 were basically Tweedledee and Tweedledum on foreign policy. There just wasn't a lot of difference. The real outlier was Trump. And this tells you that moving forward, there is likely to be a lot of overlap in terms of how Republicans in general and Democrats in general think about foreign policy. The real differences between the two parties, except for Trump, have been on domestic political issues, not foreign policy issues. Second big conceptual point I wanna make is that when Trump got elected in 2016, it's very clear that the Democrats could not bring themselves to accept the fact that he was a legitimate president. And they went to great lengths to delegitimize him from 2016 up until the present. Now we have a Democrat moving into the White House. And from a Republican perspective, it's payback time. The Republicans are going to go to great lengths to delegitimize Joe Biden over the next four years the same way the Democrats tried to delegitimize Donald Trump over the past four years. This is going to be the principal manifestation of the polarization that exists in the United States. These are two political establishments that are at war with each other. And this has consequences for foreign policy. So that's the sort of broad background that you wanna keep in mind over the next four years as you watch the Biden administration go about its business in the foreign policy realm. Let me shift gears now and talk about specific policy issues and start with China and then go to Europe and then go to the Middle East. With regard to China, there is no question that for the United States of America, Europe is no longer the most important area of the world. Historically, Europe has always been the most important area of the world for the United States outside of the Western hemisphere. That world has gone away. East Asia is the most important area of the world because China is a potential peer competitor. There is no daylight between the Republican and the Democratic parties on that issue. And that includes President Trump. Virtually everybody agrees that China has to be contained. That's the key issue. And you're not gonna see any difference between Biden and Trump on that basic issue. I think you'll see two important differences, the first of which is I think very important. And that is Biden and company will go to great lengths to treat our allies in Asia with real respect and they will do everything they can to cobble together a balancing coalition or an alliance structure that allows us to deal with China, arising China. The fact is that the Trump administration did a terrible job dealing with our allies in Asia and in Europe as well. And I'll talk about this in a minute. But for purposes of containing China in Asia, we definitely need all the help that we can get from our allies. And that means that President Biden is going to have to go to great lengths to work closely with those allies. And I believe they will do that. I believe that his administration will do that and the Americans will be all the better for that. Second thing I would expect to change is I think that the economic war that the United States is now waging against China will continue, but it will be done in a less heavy-handed and more thoughtful manner. I think that President Trump has been something of a bull in a China shop when it comes to getting tough with the Chinese on economic issues. I think everybody in the United States agrees that it's now time to get tough with China, both economically and militarily. But I think it will be done in more measured fashion. So those are the two big changes that I expect with regard to how the United States deals with China. Again, I think we'll treat our allies better. And I think that the economic warfare will be conducted in a more sophisticated way. Now, let me turn to Europe, which of course is the subject that you care the most about. The Biden administration is filled with people who love Europe. They're transatlanticists at heart. There's a fundamental difference between how people in the Biden administration think about Europe and how President Trump thinks about Europe. And basically the Biden administration is filled with people who think that the Europeans are children and that we have to be their babysitters. We have to take care of them. They can't provide for their own security. We have to provide security for them. We have to be very nice to them. We have to have good relations. And they of course will look up to us for our leadership as they have since 1945. Very importantly, the Biden administration is filled with people who love the Russians. They still believe foolishly, but nevertheless they believe that the Russians helped put Donald Trump in the White House and that they are a serious threat to us. And we have to stay in Europe. We have to maintain NATO to deal with the Russian threat. So we're gonna be in Europe. The transatlantic alliance is not going away anytime soon. I would also note to you that when you think about China, the Americans need allies in East Asia. I tried to emphasize this point earlier. We need good relations with our allies in Asia for purposes of containing China. We also need good relations with the Europeans for purposes of containing China. The Europeans are not going to help us contain China militarily. European countries don't have enough power projection capability to matter on the military level for containing China, but they do matter economically. It's very important that the Europeans cooperate with us economically to contain China. So I think if the Europeans and the Americans are able to work together economically in terms of dealing with China, that will go a long way towards fostering good relations between the United States and Europe over the next four years. I think, by the way, if that's not the case, if the Americans come to feel that the Europeans are trading with the Chinese in ways that are not in the American national interest, the Europeans are trading, for example, dual use technologies to the Chinese. It will enrage the Americans. And I think it will increase the chances that the United States will leave Europe militarily. But I don't think that will happen. I think it's more likely that there'll be cooperation between the United States and Europe. And therefore, I think relations between Europe and the United States will be much better for the next four years than they have been, which is not to say they will be excellent. I just think that they'll be much better than they were under the Trump administration. This brings us to the Middle East. Let me start with Israel. Then let me talk about Iran. And then let me talk about Syria and Iraq. With regard to Israel, there's no question that the Trump administration made a number of bold, and I would argue foolish moves regarding Israel, moving the American embassy to Jerusalem was, in my opinion, not a smart move. And giving the Netanyahu government the green light on the West Bank was not a smart move either. There's no way that the Biden administration is going to roll back any of those decisions that the Trump administration made. It's just not gonna happen. The Israel lobby is a remarkably powerful interest group in the United States. And the lobby makes it almost impossible for any president to put any meaningful pressure on Israel. So everything that Israel got under President Trump will remain in place. It is possible that the Biden administration will go to some lengths to discourage the Israelis from building more settlements on the West Bank or for formally incorporating the West Bank into a greater Israel. But other than that, I think relations between the United States and Israel will be quite good. I think President Biden is in no position given the political facts of life in the United States to pick a fight with Israel. Then we get to the question of Iran, which is one of the really big questions on the agenda. The Trump administration, as you all know, foolishly pulled out of the JCPOA. That was the nuclear agreement that the United States and the Iranians had. Actually, it was more than just the United States. It was China, Russia, and a handful of European countries as well. And the United States is now pursuing a very hard-nosed policy towards Iran. And the Biden administration has made a lot of noise about the importance of re-establishing the JCPOA, having the Americans go back into the agreement and trying to return to the status quo ante. I don't think that can happen. I think relations between the two sides have been so thoroughly poisoned that it's difficult for me to imagine how we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I would also note that if we try to do that, the Israel lobby will go to great lengths to make sure it doesn't happen. The Israel lobby, by and large, was deeply opposed to the JCPOA. And if we don't re-enter the JCPOA, the Iranians will go on enriching uranium and they will get closer and closer to having the capability to build a bomb, if not build a bomb itself. And this will put enormous pressure on the United States to launch a military attack against Iran. So I think that there's gonna be real trouble in the years ahead on the Iranian issue. I think it'll be the most troublesome issue in the Middle East and one of the most troublesome issues for American foreign policy under President Biden, of all the issues that are on the table. Then with regard to Syria and Iraq, President Trump, as you know, wanted to get out. I think that was one of his smart policies. We have been too deeply involved in all of these unnecessary and losing wars in the greater Middle East and Trump wanted to put an end to those wars and remove American troops. He was unable to do it. And I believe that Biden will not be able to do it either. Again, I think the Israel lobby will put enormous pressure on the United States to remain on the ground in places like Iraq and Syria. And furthermore, the American foreign policy establishment and this of course includes the Democratic Party is filled with people who believe that we should be on the ground forever in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. So it's gonna be very hard for us to pull out from those areas. And again, just to go back over the territory I covered, there's gonna be great pressure on us to do something about Iran's nuclear capabilities if we don't get back into the JCPOA. And I don't think we will. And then again, with regard to Israel, I think that what has happened under President Trump will remain in place. Let me conclude by saying that I think that the fundamental change that you will get, the one change of real consequence that you will get between the Biden administration and the Trump administration is how we deal with allies. And I'm sure that this is good news to all Europeans, the Irish included. The Biden administration, as I said, will be filled with individuals who are interested in having excellent relations with their allies. And I wanna be clear, I think that's a very smart policy, especially in East Asia. And the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not we will be able to establish, in fact, good relations with our allies around the world because of all the damage that has already been done. There's no question when you read the newspapers every day and you listen to radio and TV that serious damage has been done in transatlantic relations. Serious damage has been done between the United States and its East Asian allies, especially in Southeast Asia. And the question is, can that damage be undone by a Biden administration? And more importantly, can that damage be repaired given the polarization that now exists in the United States? As I said in my preliminary comments, it's very important to understand that the Democrats and the Republicans are going to be waging war against each other for the next four years. And the question you have to ask yourself, the question we all have to ask is whether or not given that war that's going to be taken place inside the United States, it will be possible for the Biden administration to demonstrate the necessary leadership to repair America's relationships with its allies in Europe and East Asia in an effective way. And I think the jury is out on that. Thank you very much.