Team Trump is getting handover hints from Team Biden

AFTERNSCNSCUSAI AI a corporate raider pulls off a hostile takeover, why listen to the losers who ran the company before? To some around Donald Trump, the presidential transition on January 20th should follow a similar logic. Nominees for big jobs growl about crushing the deep state and firing federal officials who dissent. Yet in one policy realm at least—national security—the outgoing Biden administration has messages to pass on, and (modest) confidence that (some) Trump lieutenants may hear them.Serving and former officials concede that the next administration views Mr Biden’s foreign-policy record with scorn. By convention, teams of incoming officials should already be visiting government agencies for briefings and crisis-response exercises, and reading handover memos drafted by staffers in the National Security Council (). That powerful agency sits inside the White House, tasked with keeping the president abreast of world events and of possible policy responses, as proposed by different branches of government. Ahead of the transition in 2017, President Barack Obama’s outgoing staff reportedly prepared 275 such memos. Alas, they had little confidence that their successors read them. The transition process is behind schedule again. In the meantime, Mr Trump has been hosting world leaders at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, making foreign policy pronouncements and naming ambassadors as if he is already president.For all that, it is just possible that some messages will get through. Mr Trump’s chosen national security adviser, , has been talking intensively to the incumbent, Jake Sullivan. Mr Trump and top aides are consuming top-secret intelligence from America’s spy agencies.Transitions from one party to another can be productive as well as fraught, says Rick Waters, who in nearly three decades as a career diplomat served in the of President George W. Bush, and from 2021-23 co-ordinated China policy at the State Department. When one party stays in office, it can be hard to question settled policies. In contrast, newcomers have an interest in learning about “things that are not obvious outside government”. These include how things have changed since they were last in office, or the most secret details of relations with China and Russia.During the Biden-to-Trump transition, a lot of messages involve relative leverage. Grown-ups inside the system do not waste time tut-tutting about Mr Trump’s promises to end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. Instead, they agree that Mr Trump’s willingness to end assistance gives him power over Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. It may even give Mr Zelensky the political excuse he needs to enter negotiations that involve the loss of some territory—an endgame that Mr Biden’s team, like Mr Trump’s, considers inevitable. The message from Biden aides to their successors involves the need for corresponding leverage over Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. In their telling, for the fighting to end soon Mr Trump must be willing to let the war run, otherwise Mr Putin will think he can wait America out. Knowing that this advice is unwelcome, some in Biden-world draw analogies with America’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan, and ask whether Mr Trump wants to preside over a comparable failure in Ukraine.On the Middle East, the Biden team agrees with Mr Trump’s aides that Iran has rarely been as weak in decades. The devastation by Israel of its proxies, Hizbullah and Hamas, and the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, offer a huge strategic opportunity. That may help Mr Trump pursue his goal of normalising relations between Israel and Arab rulers, including the great prize, Saudi Arabia. But the Biden team has messages of caution to pass on, too. Should the next administration push for regime change in Iran, that overreach will undermine American leverage regionally. Iranian vulnerability is also a risk, if it leads the regime to sprint for nuclear weapons. Syria could fall under jihadist control.Grown-ups in Biden-world agree that Mr Trump has generated leverage over China. Chinese leaders are braced for America to apply pressure over their industrial policies, trade practices and the modernisation of the People’s Liberation Army. Global markets have priced in some disruption. All this gives Mr Trump negotiating clout. The question is how to use it. Mr Trump and aides will hear that Chinese leaders are resigned to attempts to rebalance the -China trade relationship, but will respond fiercely if they feel the Communist Party’s legitimacy is being questioned. Meanwhile, China’s own counter-leverage should be taken seriously.The Biden team has thoughts to share about the axis of adversaries formed by China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. Co-operation between the four is real and dangerous, but China is also something of an outlier. China has a stake in a stable international order. The other three have little to lose. The advice is for America to impose costs on China, without binding it more tightly to the axis. Space warfare offers an example. Some time ago, America spotted signs that Russia might deploy a satellite-killing nuclear device in space. Mr Biden’s team has urged China to warn Russia against such a terrible idea.Biden aides have warned successors that two differently failing states, Haiti and Venezuela, may soon generate flows of migrants to America. They shared what they have learned in four years about governance anddiffusion, meaning the tricky business of deciding which technologies to sell to which countries.At times the Biden era sounds almost quaint. This month his ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, compared presidential transitions to the passing of a relay baton. Trump-world prefers cage-fights. Still, Mr Trump has incentives to heed those who came before him. Even losers have hard-won lessons to share.