Joe Biden can't heal America without help from the rest of the world | Gordon Brown

The triple crises of Covid, the economy and the climate can only be solved globally. Thankfully, this plays to his strengths

On the campaign trail, Joe Biden quoted the following words of his favourite poet, Seamus Heaney: Hope for a great sea change / on the far side of revenge."

As the US president-elect finally takes the oath of office in Washington DC, the rest of the world desperately needs him to effect a sea change. If his first task is to reunite a divided America, his second is to end American isolationism: to show Americans that they need the world, and show the world that we still need America.