President Biden said the United States maintains a “sacred obligation” to its allies as he arrived Monday at NATO headquarters in Brussels for a summit with leaders of other member nations. Biden is attending the summit on his first overseas trip as president.
Here’s what to know:
- While Biden’s presence was embraced at the NATO meeting, there are still deep divisions about how much to focus on Beijing as well as concerns that Biden’s unilateral approach to the Afghanistan pullout was similar to Trump’s.
- As the G-7 leaders wrapped up their summit, Biden said democratic governments face a defining challenge: to show they can meet tests such as global health crises and climate change better than autocracies such as China and Russia.
- Biden said Queen Elizabeth II reminded him of his mother after he had tea with the British monarch at Windsor Castle, his last set-piece event before concluding the first leg of his overseas trip.
NATO communique stresses continued support for Afghanistan despite troop withdrawal
In its communique released Monday, the NATO allies stressed that it would remain focused on Afghanistan after the U.S.-led troop withdrawal.
“Withdrawing our troops does not mean ending our relationship with Afghanistan,” the document said. “We will now open a new chapter. We affirm our commitment to continue to stand with Afghanistan, its people, and its institutions in promoting security and upholding the hard-won gains of the last 20 years.”
Some allies have voiced disappointment in Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops, saying it was done with limited consultation and risks a recapture of Afghanistan by the Taliban.
“Recalling our previous commitments, NATO will continue to provide training and financial support to the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces, including through the Afghan National Army Trust Fund,” the NATO communique said.
The document also said it would provide transitional funding to “ensure continued functioning of Hamid Karzai International Airport” and work in other ways to prevent Afghanistan from becoming “a safe haven for terrorists.”
NATO criticizes China more strongly in new statement, saying it presents ‘systemic challenges’ to international order
In its communique released Monday, the NATO allies took a far more aggressive posture on China than in years past, writing that its “stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order.”
“China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and a larger number of sophisticated delivery systems to establish a nuclear triad,” the communique said. “It is opaque in implementing its military modernisation and its publicly declared military-civil fusion strategy. It is also cooperating militarily with Russia, including through participation in Russian exercises in the Euro-Atlantic area.”
The NATO allies also voiced concern with “China’s frequent lack of transparency and use of disinformation.”
“We call on China to uphold its international commitments and to act responsibly in the international system, including in the space, cyber, and maritime domains, in keeping with its role as a major power,” the communique said.
Biden has pushed U.S. allies to focus more on China in addition to Russia. During the Group of Seven summit in England, he also sought to sharpen China-related discussions.
Democrats seek to highlight contrast between Biden’s and Trump’s relationships with U.S. allies
Democrats are trying to score political points by touting Biden’s tighter relationships with U.S. allies than those of President Donald Trump, as evidenced by a new video released Monday by the Democratic National Committee.
The video opens with a footage of Trump’s infamous shove of Dusko Markovic, the leader of Montenegro, a small Balkan nation, at the 2017 NATO meeting in Brussels, the first attended by Trump as president. It includes images of other awkward moments with world leaders, and commentary that Trump seemed to enjoy meeting more with authoritarian figures.
The video then cuts to footage of news coverage about Biden “repairing relationships one handshake at a time” during the three-day meeting of the Group of Seven summit in England that ended Sunday.
Biden is seen shaking hands with French President Emmanuel Macron, smiling at a meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and engaged in what appears to be a serious conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (the latter of whom Trump reportedly called “a loser”).
“The contrast couldn’t be clearer,” the video asserts.
As Biden meets with world leaders, U.S. lawmakers are focusing on infrastructure, a White House priority
As Biden continues to meet with other world leaders abroad, U.S. lawmakers are set to return to Washington on Monday facing a pivotal week for one of his leading domestic priorities: the future of infrastructure spending.
Bipartisan negotiations are continuing and work is proceeding to advance a flurry of bills to improve the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections.
At the center of the debate is an infrastructure compromise brokered by 10 Senate Democrats and Republicans. The bloc, largely composed of moderates, now faces the new, tough task of selling their deal to both fellow lawmakers and the White House, just days after talks between Biden and another group of GOP leaders reached a political impasse.
“We’re talking to folks, one by one, and just asking folks to be open,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in advance of the new plan’s release.
Belgian prime minister says Biden’s presence at NATO ‘emphasizes the renewal of the transatlantic partnership’
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, as leader of the host country for the NATO gathering, welcomed Biden to the meeting Monday, saying his “presence emphasizes the renewal of the transatlantic partnership.”
The comment was a thinly veiled contrast to Biden’s predecessor, President Donald Trump, who questioned at times why the United States should protect smaller countries and constantly needled other NATO members to boost their defense spending.
NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg also spoke of “a new chapter in transatlantic relations” in remarks before reporters were ushered out of the meeting.
“No nation and no continent can deal with these challenges alone, but Europe and North America are not alone,” Stoltenberg said. “We stand together with NATO.”
Before the start of the meeting, Biden entered the room, fist-bumped Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in a brief greeting and later spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Biden also spoke at some length with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with whom he has a meeting scheduled later Monday, and more briefly with France’s president, Emmanuel Macron.
Biden and other NATO leaders take ‘family photo’ ahead of discussions
Biden and leaders of other NATO member nations posed Monday for a traditional “family photo” ahead of their discussions at the military alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.
They gathered on a gray marble floor and stood on small spots — several feet apart, for social distancing purposes — marked with the abbreviation of their country. Biden was positioned in the center of the front row.
A voice over a loudspeaker asked the leaders to remove their masks and look at the camera for 15 seconds.
Ahead of the photo, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg greeted each leader individually, often with a fist bump or elbow bump. Biden was the last of the 30 members to enter the hall.
Biden met earlier Monday with three Baltic leaders: Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Latvian President Egils Levits and Lithuania President Gitanas Nauseda.
Biden will give Putin a list of demands. The Russian president may ignore them.
ST. IVES, England — President Biden plans to press Vladimir Putin in their coming meeting to rein in ransomware attacks launched from Russian soil. He is expected to demand Russia withdraw from Ukraine. He will almost certainly tell the Russian president to stop interfering in U.S. elections.
But those demands raise a question that is vexing U.S. policymakers and the United States’ European allies: What happens if Putin ignores the demands, as he has signaled he will do?
Michael McFaul, who was U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, said more must come out of Wednesday’s face-to-face meeting than a simple discussion. But Putin is unlikely to agree substantially to cut back his aggressive activities, diplomats say, and may not even acknowledging they are occurring.
Biden reaffirms commitment to NATO, calling it ‘essential for America’
Biden reaffirmed the commitment of the United States to its NATO allies shortly after arriving Monday at the headquarters of the military alliance in Brussels, where he is meeting with leaders of other member nations.
“NATO is critically important,” Biden said after he was greeted by Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, with an elbow bump. “Article 5, we take as a sacred obligation.”
Under Article 5, an attack on one NATO ally is considered an attack on all allies. The tenet was at times questioned under President Donald Trump.
“I just want all of Europe to know that the United States is there,” Biden told Stoltenberg. “I just want to thank you for your leadership.”
Biden also called NATO “essential for America.”
In brief remarks, the U.S. president also spoke of the challenges posed to the alliance by Russia and China.
“There is a growing recognition over the last couple years that we have new challenges,” he said. “We have Russia, which is acting in a way that is not consistent with what we had hoped, and we have China.”
Aside from the NATO summit itself, Biden’s itinerary while in Brussels includes some smaller meetings with leaders, including President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey at a time of strained relations.
Later Monday, Biden plans to hold a news conference.
Amid strained U.S.-Turkey relations, Biden and Erdogan to meet on sidelines of NATO summit
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took the high road at a Sunday news conference as he left home for a meeting with Biden at the NATO summit in Brussels, dismissing “rumors” about the state of the U.S.-Turkey relationship and suggesting they “leave all these behind and speak about what we can do together.”
The same Erdogan last month accused Biden of having “bloody hands” for selling arms to Israel, in comments that the State Department called antisemitic.
The last time Biden met with the Turkish leader, during a vice-presidential visit to Ankara in 2016, it was to deny Erdogan’s charges that the United States had helped plot a coup attempt against him. In Istanbul earlier that year, Biden publicly criticized Erdogan’s arrests of journalists, political opponents and academics.
President Biden says Queen Elizabeth II ‘reminded me of my mother’
CARBIS BAY, England — President Biden said Queen Elizabeth II reminded him of his mother after he had tea with the British monarch at Windsor Castle, his last set-piece event on Sunday before concluding the United Kingdom leg of his overseas trip.
After attending a three-day Group of Seven summit in Carbis Bay, in southwestern England, Biden headed to Windsor Castle, where the queen has spent much of her time since the pandemic began. Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived on Marine One.
After the meeting with Elizabeth, Biden, 78, told reporters that the 95-year-old monarch reminded him of his mother.
G-7 takes stronger stand against China, at U.S. urging
CARBIS BAY, England — As Group of Seven leaders wrapped up their three-day summit here on Sunday, President Biden said democratic governments face a defining challenge: to show they can meet tests such as global health crises and climate change better than autocracies such as China and Russia.
“I think we’re in a contest, not with China per se, but a contest with autocrats, autocratic governments around the world, as to whether or not democracies can compete with them in a rapidly changing 21st century,” Biden told reporters during the first news conference of his first foreign trip as president.
He cited China and Russia for reprobation after working here to enlist U.S. allies in what he has repeatedly cast as the existential battle of the 21st century.
NATO allies seek clarity on maintaining secure facilities in Afghanistan following troop withdrawal
With fewer than 100 days before the Sept. 11 deadline that Biden has set for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, allies in the two-decade-long war are anxiously awaiting U.S. guidance on what comes next.
The administration has issued broad commitments to maintaining its diplomatic presence and massive aid programs there, and to keeping terrorists from using Afghanistan as a launchpad for global attacks.
But NATO and other partners are increasingly concerned about the details, from how Kabul’s international airport and the main medical facility that diplomats and aid workers depend on will be kept operational and secure to where counterterrorism surveillance and other assets will be based outside Afghanistan.
Why Ukraine will hang on every word in the Biden-Putin summit
By David L. Stern
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s political radar is always fine-tuned to Washington and Moscow. It looks to the West for help but is locked in conflicts with Russia and its allies.
Wednesday’s summit between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva will have Ukraine watching from the sidelines with deep interest in everything from the phrases used to the body language between the two leaders.
Expectations are low that the talks will produce a breakthrough in U.S. relations with Russia. Still, even the slightest shifts in policies have potential consequences for Ukraine.
Analysis: China looms over Biden’s Europe trip
His colleagues from across the pond seemed to embrace the change in atmosphere, as the leaders made new commitments to the global struggle against the pandemic and climate change.
