Joe Biden was supposed to be like a "caretaker pope," a president of the United States anxious to heal the wounds of a nation torn apart after the terms of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
But behind the politician who was first elected to the Senate in 1973 and was 78 at the start of his presidency lurked a revolutionary. He shook up the American economy with his massive measures to reindustrialize the US and with social measures ranging from Covid-19 aid to lower drug prices to a partial cancelation of student debt. It came at the cost of a level of inflation that has not been seen in over 40 years and a staggering budget deficit of 6.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), while unemployment is below the 4% mark.
Biden dreams of being perceived as a new Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president and father of the New Deal in the 1930s, under whom the country emerged transformed, with half the world's GDP, after the economic crisis linked to the crash and the war; or to another Democrat, Lyndon B. Johnson, the successor to John F. Kennedy, who imposed civil and social rights with his Great Society, but who provoked stagflation by getting bogged down in the Vietnam War.
In Europe, there's a certain fascination with Biden, who dares to do what Europeans – especially the French – would only dream of accomplishing: massively subsidizing their industry, imposing dizzying tariffs on China, and letting the deficit run wild – to hell with the markets.
To understand "Bidenomics," it is necessary to go back to the context of his election, which aimed to respond to four challenges. First, to win back the White working class, which had massively swung in favor of Trump in 2016, through a pro-labor message about protecting traditional industry. Second, to implement a left-wing agenda in order to recapture socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' supporters, who had not shown up for Hillary Clinton. This meant a "social democratization" of America, with higher wages and stronger social protection.
Third, to learn the lessons of the Covid-19 crisis and the rise of Chinese authoritarianism, which revealed the extraordinary vulnerability of the US economy, with production chains scattered across the globe. Finally, to adopt a powerful environmentalist agenda, following Trump's exit from the Paris Agreement.
Bidenomics is like a social and isolationist seesaw, confirming the post-2016 Trumpist break with the American policy that had been followed since 1945. It was conceptualized by his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, who described the "new Washington consensus." As Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute, a transatlantic think tank in Washington, explained in 2022, in terms of the economy, Biden is much closer to Trump than Bill Clinton.
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