Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the electoral verdict of the American people are running out of road, which means in foreign ministries and leaders' offices across the world, attention is now focused on what President-elect Biden will mean for U.S. foreign policy making.

What is his geopolitical vision and how will he seek to project American power and influence?

Well, my guest is well placed to give us strong clues. Anthony Gardner was U.S. ambassador to the

EU in Barack Obama's second term. He's tipped by some for a key

ambassadorial post in the Biden administration. We already know who will be the President-elect

Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, a senior foreign policy insider throughout the Obama years.

So are we to assume there'll be a reversion to pre-Trump foreign

policy priorities as if the last four years never happened? Or are there lessons from some of the

Trumpian disruption of foreign policy norms, which the Biden team would do well to learn from. Well, Anthony Gardner

joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. Let's begin by looking at the names that have been put forward

by Joe Biden to be key players in his foreign policy and national security team. That is,

Tony Blinken, who we understand will be Secretary of State

and Jake Sullivan will be his national security advisor. Both of them key players in the foreign policy

machine of Barack Obama. Does this mean we are reverting back to what was? Well, first of all, they are both exceptional human beings,

exceptional individuals with a lot of experience. I've known Tony Blinken for 52 years, and I

worked with them twice in the National Security Council and later, obviously, under the Obama

presidency. And I've seen him in the trenches in some very difficult situations. And not only does he have the right skills and experience, he's also a very decent human being, and everyone in government who's worked with him would say that. Those are really rare skills. And I've worked with Jake and have very high regard for him. But no, to answer your question, this is not going to be, in my view, speaking as a private citizen, this will not be Obama 3.0. It's got to be different. You know, Trump isn't going

to go away. It's not as his character. And Trumpism, unfortunately, has not been defeated.

A lot of water under the bridge. So things will have to be different. There will not be perhaps

enormous bandwidth for foreign policy.

And in the foreign policy that we seek to achieve, we're going to have to be very, very focused

in trade and non-trade issues as well. So you'll see a different way of going about things.

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