The prime minister wants to show that Britain remains a vital ally. On climate change and military spending, he is promising major steps that will be welcomed by the president-elect.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson rolled out ambitious, back-to-back initiatives on military spending and climate change this week, which have little in common except that both are likely to please a very important new person in Mr. Johnson’s life: President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. The prime minister, whom President Trump has embraced as a like-minded populist, is eager to show he can work with the incoming president as well as he did with the outgoing one. Building more warships and phasing out new gas- and diesel-powered cars within a decade demonstrates to Mr. Biden that Britain can be a useful and relevant partner, even if it no longer belongs to the European Union. That is important, analysts said, because Brexit will deprive Britain of what had historically been one of its greatest assets to the United States: serving as an Anglophone bridge to the leaders of continental Europe. “Britain won’t be playing this role of connecting the U.S. with Europe,” said Karin von Hippel, director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, a military research institute in London. “But the good news is they do want to play a role on the global stage. This says to the Biden people, ‘We’re all in, we want to work with you.’” Mr. Biden has pledged to reinvigorate America’s climate policy by swiftly rejoining the Paris climate accord. Analysts said he would also try to heal strains in the NATO alliance, which has been under relentless attack by Mr. Trump, who has accused other members of not paying their fair share of its costs. Mr. Johnson cast his initiatives as gestures of support to allies, even at a time when the pandemic has busted public finances. The new military spending, he said, would boost Britain’s defense budget to at least 2.2 percent of its gross domestic product — comfortably above the 2 percent threshold that was a bugaboo for Mr. Trump because other NATO members, like Germany and France, fail to meet it. “Britain must be true to our history, to stand alongside our allies, sharing the burden, and bringing our expertise to bear on the world’s toughest problems,” Mr. Johnson said in introducing the defense spending plan to the House of Commons.
