Seated in front of photographers in the Oval Office in 2017, German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaned toward US President Donald Trump during their first meeting: “They want (us) to have a handshake.” But Trump ignored her and Merkel was unable to hide a look of incredulity as she turned to face the cameras. Trump’s treatment of traditional US allies, on a personal and policy level, has left presumed President-elect Joe Biden with shell-shocked American friends likely forever wary of Washington’s credibility – no matter who resides in the White House, say some diplomats and analysts. “The transatlantic relationship has never been this bad. The trust between the US and Europe is not there anymore,” said a senior European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It can be repaired, but … I’m not sure it will be the same.” Biden, who was vice president under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, pledged before the Nov. 3 election to stand up for US allies and “make it clear to our adversaries the days of cozying up to dictators are over,” referring to Trump’s friendliness with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “You just can’t reset to four years ago. In particular in both Europe and Asia, how we are smarter about rebuilding alliances to deal with the threats from China and Russia is going to be a major challenge for Biden,” said Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia under Obama and now a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution think tank. Biden has promised to hold a global “Summit for Democracy” to fight corruption, defend against authoritarianism, and advance human rights. Though there may have been a collective sense of relief among US allies after his narrow election victory, he has acknowledged that “picking up the pieces will be an enormous task” after Trump. “Memories of Trump will remain and create a certain degree of background anxiety in what future US presidents might do,” said Michael O’Hanlon, of the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, describing it as an “alliance PTSD.” US friends and partners are also mindful that once Biden take office on Jan. 20, he is expected to focus heavily on twin domestic challenges of fighting the coronavirus pandemic and the US economic crisis caused by it. LOST GUARDIAN Trump championed an “America First” policy and while he said that didn’t mean “America alone” there were several occasions where his administration was isolated, including on votes in the 15-member United Nations Security Council. The United States split with allies over Trump’s decisions to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, leave the Iran nuclear deal, quit a global climate accord, challenge sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and leave the U.N. Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization. Biden had vowed to rejoin the nuclear deal if Iran returns to compliance, return to the climate accord, abandon plans to leave the WHO and end a US rule that bans funding of aid groups that discuss abortion. “Now in Europe, leaders and people have realized that you conclude agreements with the US and four years later, the following administration throws the agreements in the garbage,” the senior European diplomat said. “So there is a question of credibility and reliability of the US” A senior Trump administration official said it was unfair to conclude that the “America First” approach had hurt Washington’s key alliances, insisting that Trump had just taken a tougher stance than Obama that had made relationships stronger and that most key allies had grown accustomed to his abrasive style. A central issue for Trump has been NATO. He has pushed members, particularly Germany, to spend more and eroded faith in a pillar of post-war European security – that US forces would defend members against any Russian aggression. “Such points of contention do not explain why the US administration has shown contempt for and sought to humiliate an erstwhile close ally,” former German ambassador to Washington, Peter Wittig, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last month. “The house of the West has lost its guardian.” Biden wrote in the same magazine earlier this year that his foreign policy would “place the United States back at the head of the table” because “the world does not organize itself.”