The seaside village of St. Ives in Cornwall will be the first stop for U.S. President Joe Biden who departs for Britain on Wednesday on his eight-day tour to rebuild trans-Atlantic ties strained during the Trump era and to reframe relations with Russia, Reuters reports.
Previewing his diplomatic efforts, Biden wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that this trip is about realising America’s renewed commitment to US allies that are there to show its capacity to meet the challenges of this new age of global uncertainty and deter the threats at the same time.
He underlined that this week in Europe, the democratic alliances and institutions will have the chance to prove their capacity against modern-day threats and adversaries.
The trip, first one abroad since taking office, is kind of a test of Biden’s ability to manage and repair relationships with major allies a signal that multilateralism has survived the Trump years and consists of intense series of summits with G7, European and NATO partners before a tense face-to-face with Russia’s Vladimir Putin
Using the motto Biden adopted after former President Trump pulled Washington out of several multilateral institutions threatening even to walk out of NATO, European Council President Charles Michel said that America is back as a very strong partner to promote the multilateral approach.
Biden’s trip comes at a moment when Europeans have diminished expectations for what they can expect of U.S. leadership on the foreign stage and with France pointing that “the U.S. can’t be trusted as it once was and that the European Union must pursue greater strategic autonomy”.
The three-day G7 meeting in Cornwall is expected to be dominated by vaccine diplomacy, trade, climate and an initiative for rebuilding infrastructure in the developing world, but also an important turning point that shows serious political commitment behind governments’ pledges to build back better following the economic devastation of the coronavirus pandemic.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will meet with Biden on Thursday in Cornwall in an attempt to renew the U.S.-British “special relationship” and after the summit, Biden will visit Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle.
Next on Biden tour will be Brussels for talks with leaders of NATO and the EU where the agenda would be dominated by Russia, China and getting NATO allies to contribute more to the common defense.
He’ll close out the trip in Geneva for his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 16- probably the most difficult meeting of the week – which is an opportunity to raise U.S. concerns about ransomware attacks originating from Russia, Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine and a myriad of other issues.
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