Paired with his first virtual session of the Group of 7 a few hours earlier, Biden’s consecutive diplomatic engagements will focus on his attempt to restore the transatlantic alliance after it came under tension under Trump, who saw Europe as a commercial rival and often he said he believed that traditional US friends are more difficult to deal with than opponents.
And while officials, in anticipating his appearances, said that Biden would not focus primarily on Trump during his exits, the growing influence of his predecessor will nevertheless inform the message the president intends to convey.
“He will certainly recognize that democracy is under pressure, democratic institutions are under pressure, under the challenge in the United States that they are in parts of Europe and in other parts of the world as well,” said a senior government official. “But this recognition will be the starting point for a confident and assertive statement that he will make in this speech that we have the means to renew and strengthen our democratic institutions.”
A regular participant in the Munich conference during his years as a senator, vice president and citizen, Biden used the event as a testing ground and sounding board for his foreign policy. The event itself, founded at the height of the Cold War as a “transatlantic family gathering” that describes itself as a “transatlantic family gathering”, in a way sums up the type of group diplomacy he has long advocated.
The pandemic forced the annual meeting out of their traditional home at the grand Bavarian hotel. Instead, Biden will speak at the White House East Room conference, where he spent the first month of his presidency trying to undo the damage that he said cost the United States its credibility abroad.
This year, Biden hopes to defend a united front against Russia and China and will file specific complaints against the countries’ undemocratic threats.
After four years in which the United States has unilaterally faced the challenges imposed by China, Biden will outline a multilateral strategy to face and compete with Beijing.
While seeking to strengthen the more traditional US alliances with European countries and other democracies around the world, the president will seek to leverage these ties to face the growing challenges that China presents, urging the US and its allies to “stay together”, the official said.
“With respect to China, he will make it clear in his speech that he is not looking for confrontation and does not want to have a cold war, but he expects fierce competition and welcomes it,” said a senior government official. “And he believes that the United States, Europe and the Indo-Pacific democracies should work together to fight the Chinese.”
The official said Biden should not ask specific questions of US allies during the G7 or the Munich Security Conference with regard to China, but will urge US allies to “stay together” and “develop a common outlook”. The official emphasized that taking action against China would not be the aim of Biden’s comments at any of the conferences, nor that he would be involved in “beating his chest”.
Addressing the security conference the day after the State Department announced that the United States will engage in multilateral negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, Biden must reiterate that commitment, but will not disclose his schedule for negotiations or an agreement .
“We hope to engage in diplomacy. We look forward to sitting down and listening to what the Iranians have to say. We want to come up with a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear program and we are going to work,” said the official. “He goes no further than that in his comments.”
And just as Biden launched his $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, underlining the risk of “going too small”, not too big, a senior government official said that Biden would emphasize a similar message when it comes to global economic recovery.
“This is an era of action and investment, not austerity,” said the official, anticipating Biden’s statements.
The session will also mark the official return of the United States to the Paris climate agreement, 30 days after Biden announced that he would re-enter the US in the pact during his first day in office.
Biden joins a G7 that had been fractured by the presence of Trump, who came to dislike the group and questioned why he needed to attend its summits. At his first meeting, held on a cliff in Sicily, he felt attacked when leaders tried to convince him to stay in the Paris business.
The following year, during a riverside retreat in the forests of northern Quebec, he stubbornly resisted other leaders’ pleas on tariffs and left early, terminating his signing of the final statement while flying to Singapore to meet Kim Jong. Un.
The leaders clashed again a year later, during a heated dinner under the Biarritz lighthouse in France, when Trump said he wanted Russia to return to the group.
In his fourth year in office, when it was his turn to host the summit, Trump went back and forth over where he would be convened, upset that optics and ethics prevented him from holding it at his resort in Doral. Finally, at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron, he held a video conference. But he never organized a real date.
Without a doubt, there is a sense of tension relaxing with Biden replacing Trump in the United States chair around the G7 table. Even among leaders who tried to cultivate the former president, such as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Biden offers at least a more predictable and stable presence than Trump, whose sour humor – often motivated by jet lag, advisers said – has derailed. many Session G7.
In a way, the restoration of a trusted American voice is Biden’s signal message during his first multilateral tour, which a senior government official compared Thursday night to a “virtual trip to Europe”.
“The president will indicate his very strong view that the United States has a deep set of lasting forces that transcend what we have seen over the past four years,” said the official, predicting the president’s activity on condition of anonymity.