What You Need to Know About Biden's 8 Days in Europe

Trip will end with a daylong meeting with Vladimir Putin
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 9, 2021 6:42 AM CDT
What You Need to Know About Biden's 8 Days in Europe
In this April 22, 2021 file photo, U.S. President Joe Biden is seen on a screen as European Council President Charles Michel attends a virtual Global Climate Summit via video link from the European Council building in Brussels.   (Johanna Geron/Pool Photo via AP, File)

President Biden heads to Europe for eight days on Wednesday, and for Politico, it's "deja vu all over again." Matthew Karnitschnig writes that against the backdrop of the G7 and NATO summits he is slated to attend, Biden will do what every Oval Office occupant (minus former President Trump) has done since WWII: work to strengthen ties "with a grand public display of American commitment to Europe" while working in private to "nudge" Europe to follow our lead. But writing for NBC News, Shannon Pettypiece outlines a slate of pressing issues that are unique to our times, among them a global economy battered by COVID-19 and Russian-based cyberattackers' growing ability to target America.

And it'll likely feel fresh coming off the Trump presidency, with Pettypiece recalling Trump's G7 history, which included him exiting one summit early in order to meet with Kim Jong Un, "lashing out at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Twitter on his way out the door," and in 2019 threatening a trade war with France. Indeed, NPR's take is that Biden is heading to Europe "to convince allies the United States has their back," and he'll be among friends as he tries to do so thanks to his decades of foreign policy work while in the Senate and as vice president. As the New York Times puts it, Biden's goal for the trip is to impart "diplomatic serenity." Beyond the summits, Biden plans to meet individually with Boris Johnson, Queen Elizabeth II, and Vladimir Putin, in what his administration has suggested will be a tense daylong session. (More President Biden stories.)

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