Global Courant
U.S. President Joe Biden waves from Air Force One as he departs Washington for Dover, Delaware at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, July 7, 2023.
Kevin Worm | Reuters
President Joe Biden departs for Europe on Sunday, where he will spend time in three countries building alliances tested by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
After arriving in London overnight, Biden will meet King Charles III the next day for the first time since his coronation. Then follows the centerpiece of the journey, the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Alliance leaders will discuss the war and review plans to deal with Russian aggression.
The final stop is in Helsinki, where Biden is expected to celebrate the expanding alliance on Thursday, with Finland the newest member of NATO.
His national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the trip would “showcase the president’s leadership on the global stage.”
A look at Biden’s agenda and the issues he faces:
London
Biden arrives in London on Sunday evening and is expected to have a packed meeting schedule on Monday.
“There is always a lot to discuss with the UK,” said Max Bergmann, a former State Department official who heads the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Biden will hold talks with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing St. Sunak faces elections at the end of next year. His Conservative Party is lagging far behind the opposition in opinion polls.
Despite Sunak’s shaky political position, he has nurtured close ties with Biden and it will be their sixth meeting since Sunak took office last October.
Bergmann said Sunak’s tenure was a nice change after “there were some concerns that Boris Johnson”, one of Sunak’s predecessors, “would be an unhinged cannon”.
Biden will visit the king at Windsor Castle, a royal residence outside London. Biden did not attend Charles’s coronation — first lady Jill Biden took his place — so this will be their first meeting since.
They are expected to discuss climate change, an issue both leaders have focused on, and how to fund initiatives to address the problem.
Vilnius
Biden will spend two days in Lithuania’s capital, where the annual NATO summit takes place. He will participate in meetings with leaders and give a speech from Vilnius University.
The alliance has been revived by the war in Ukraine, and members have pumped military equipment into the country to repel the Russian invasion.
Biden on Friday defended what he called a “tough decision” to supply cluster munitions to Ukraine, a move his administration says was key to the fight and backed by Ukraine’s pledge to use the controversial bombs carefully. Biden is likely to receive questions from allies about why the US would send a weapon to Ukraine that has banned more than two-thirds of NATO members because it has a track record of causing many civilian deaths.
For Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the summit will “send a clear message: NATO is united and Russia’s aggression will not pay”.
But NATO has also struggled to bridge divisions on key issues. Finland was welcomed into the alliance this year, but Sweden’s membership was held back by Turkey and Hungary.
There are also disagreements about how soon Ukraine should be invited to join NATO.
Countries on NATO’s eastern flank want to act quickly and see it as a way to deter Russian aggression. The US and others are calling for a more cautious approach.
One problem has already been solved, at least for now. Stoltenberg’s term was extended by a year because the members could not agree on a new leader.
Senator Thom Tillis, who will be attending the summit, likened the alliance to a gathering of dozens of family members bickering and clashing yet remaining united.
“Ultimately, you know you’re family,” says Tillis, RN.C.
Tillis leads a bipartisan delegation along with Senator Jeanne Shaheen, DN.H., who said NATO is more powerful than before.
“It is the strongest military alliance in our history and I think it has only grown stronger because of US leadership, because of Stoltenberg’s leadership and because of Vladimir Putin’s threat to all NATO allies and other countries. in Europe and around the world and for the international order,” she said.
Helsinki
After two nights in Vilnius, Biden visits Helsinki. The stop is a bit of a victory lap, but can also be a reminder of unfinished business.
The Nordic country became the 31st member of NATO in April, ending its history of non-alignment and demonstrating how Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has backfired in Europe.
Finland would join its neighbor Sweden, whose admission has stalled due to Turkey and Hungary. NATO needs the unanimous agreement of all its members to expand.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson visited the White House on Wednesday and met with Biden to keep up pressure on membership. But there is little hope that the problem will be solved in Vilnius.
The White House is labeling Biden’s visit to Helsinki a “US-Nordic Leaders Summit”.
It is a very different occasion from the last time an American president visited Helsinki five years ago.
During that trip, Donald Trump held a press conference with Putin and brushed aside concerns about Russian interference in Trump’s election victory.
Now Biden is heading to the city to demonstrate how his administration has kept the line against Moscow and expanded Western defenses.
