Writing about a foreign president's visit to the White House is one of those things you dream about as a child and then end up becoming a problem.. In principle, few issues are more important, few more frameable photos. But then they tend to become a tostón empty of content and full of hollow words. In the chronicles of the meeting between Pedro Sánchez and Joe Biden, one of the juiciest paragraphs is the one that talks about the tariff on black olives. That's what I mean.
A sign that what is described is happening is when the details are overanalyzed to reach the chosen conclusion.. For example, that Sánchez is the first Spanish president to go into the Oval Office to chat without an interpreter and that in the span of a month and a half he has been received by the two most powerful men in the world (Biden and Xi Jinping).. Likewise, it can be said that it is the first time he has stepped foot in the White House, one less than Mariano Rajoy in his seven years in government..
goes another comparative. Yesterday he puffed out his chest because Sánchez had been received in the writing of the Washington Post. Well, when Rajoy was there in January 2014, his team organized a breakfast for him that included the director of the Associated Press agency (the most important in the world), the two directors (editorial and newsroom) of the Washington Post, the director of the New York Times, the director of the Wall Street Journal and a star presenter of CNN, Wolf Blitzer. All without leaving the hotel where the president was staying.
From yesterday's joint appearance, it can also be noted that Biden spoke for a minute and fifteen seconds, while Sánchez used almost four to release what he had prepared.. In his speech, he made unusual criticisms of the US opposition (with references to the assault on the Capitol) and launched a phrase that he did not say when he was in Beijing a little over a month ago.. Referring to the war in Ukraine, he emphasized through different hyperbole his government's support for the line drawn by Washington, saying that “transatlantic ties and allied unity remain rock solid.”.
According to sources from Sánchez's entourage conveniently cited by the Reuters agency, Sánchez had arrived with the intention of speaking in private about the Chinese peace plan, something that we do not know if it finally happened.. Halfway between Woody Allen's Zelig and the seven Oscars film, our president has the ability to blend in with his interlocutor and send all the messages, everywhere, at the same time. He had the opportunity to comment on everything that fits between the war in Ukraine and the Bildu lists.
Having said the above, there is no reason to think that the harmony between Biden and Sánchez is imposed. If there are no important things on the table, it is because many are already resolved. The void is filled with small gestures, such as accepting a handful of Central American immigrants in Spain. By the numbers that are handled, it is something that has hardly any relevance, nor consequences, but it may be of some use for Biden's internal discourse, anguished by the expiration of Trump's so-called Title 42. That is the big issue right now in the United States and, as Asier Vera recalled in this newspaper the other day, the idea has spread that if the Democrat loses his next elections “it will not be because of Ukraine, it will be because of the southern border “. In this filling of time with small symbolic gestures, a Spanish ambassador who is not usually lenient with the government considers the fact that the White House has scheduled Sánchez's visit at the gates of 28-M “significant”.
To conclude, it is true that Moncloa greatly exaggerates the international stature of Sánchez. But it is also true that the president is a recognizable and appreciated face in various latitudes. It can be objected that this is a rather superficial reputation, somewhat reminiscent of Jacinda Ardern (former Prime Minister of New Zealand) and Sanna Marin (former Prime Minister of Finland).. As was the case with them, their physical appearance and their discursive enthusiasm for the mainstream global agenda (green energy, gender equality, education…) play a determining role.. But it is a fact that Sánchez likes foreign policy, that he feels more recognized abroad than within Spain, and that he is not bad at the theater of diplomacy. In relation to the US, it is also a very comfortable ally for the current Democratic government, so comfortable that the reception of two more destroyers and several thousand of soldiers in Rota.
It is more than likely that Sánchez will look outside for what he does not get inside and carve out a long career in international organizations when he leaves the presidency. As one analyst who prefers not to be quoted often says: “Sanchez is the most Atlanticist of Spanish presidents after Aznar; and he is the one with the most prominence in the EU after Felipe Gonzalez.”