After G7, Biden says he's reestablishing U.S. credibility

U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday said the United States had restored its presence on the world stage as he used his first overseas trip since taking office to hook up with a fresh generation of leaders from a few of the world’s most effective countries and more closely unite allies on addressing the coronavirus pandemic and China’s trade and labor practices.

As he wrapped three days of what he called “an extraordinarily collaborative and productive meeting” at the Band of Seven summit of wealthy democracies, Biden said there is “genuine enthusiasm” for his engagement.

“America’s back in the business enterprise of leading the world alongside nations who share our most deeply held values,” Biden said at a news conference before leaving Cornwall to go to Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. “I think we’ve made progress in reestablishing American credibility among our closest friends.”

The president, who is on an eight-day, three country trip, left his mark on the G7 by announcing a committed action to share 500 million coronavirus vaccine doses with the world and pressing allies to do the same. The leaders on Sunday confirmed their intent to donate a lot more than 1 billion doses to low-income countries in the next year.

“This is likely to be a constant project for a long time,” Biden said of the global vaccination campaign, adding that he hoped the world could stamp out the pandemic in 2022 or 2023. “It’s not just the right move to make” from a moral standpoint, Biden said, but also the right move to make “in terms of our own health."

He also said the U.S. could possibly be able to donate yet another 1 billion vaccine doses to the world in the coming years.

Biden also fought for the leaders' joint statement to add specific language criticizing China's use of forced labor and other human rights abuses as he worked to cast the rivalry with Beijing as the defining competition for the 21st century. The president declined to go over the private negotiations over the provision, but said he was “satisfied” with the tough rhetoric, though difference remained among the allies about how forcefully to call out Beijing.

Canada, the uk and France largely endorsed the Biden administration’s position, while Germany, Italy and European showed hesitancy during the talks, according to a senior official who briefed reporters on the health of anonymity.

Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, played down the division, but acknowledged “countries had different degrees of conviction about the depth of the task."

“However when you add it all up, actually the whole became greater than the sum of its parts since there is a broad view that China represents a significant challenge to the world’s democracies, on a number of different dimensions," Sullivan said.

The leaders also embraced Biden's require a 15% global minimum corporate tax rate.

The other G7 allies did their part in creating the impression that Biden was part of “the Club” and sought to greatly help reinforce Biden’s “America is back” mantra, including by embracing the his campaign slogan to “Build Back Better” from the pandemic.

Most European allies have been disenchanted with President Donald Trump’s grumbling of “global freeloaders” and espousing an “America First” policy, so Biden had the task of convincing a skeptical audience that the last U.S. administration had not been a harbinger of a more insular country.

“We're totally on a single page,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of Biden.

Implicitly criticizing his predecessor, who had said other countries should purchase the occurrence of America’s military occurrence abroad, Biden said he will not view NATO as a “protection racket.” Biden also reported that global leaders were gratified that the U.S. president accepted the science of climate change.

“Among the things some of my colleagues said to me when I was there is, ‘Well, the United States’ leadership recognizes there is global warming,” Biden said.

The president was ending his day in Brussels for meetings with NATO and EU leaders on Monday and Tuesday before his summit with Putin on Wednesday in Geneva. U.S. officials said that one-on-one meeting would test whether the two men could create a constructive relationship even while Biden was poised to rebuke Putin for a range of rights abuses and election interference.

Pressed at the news headlines conference on why Putin hasn't changed his behavior after waves of U.S. sanctions, Biden replied with fun. “He’s Vladimir Putin.”

The summit marked a few of Biden's first face-to-face meetings with global leaders since taking office in January amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, with whom he was meeting for the first time.

The 43-year-old Macron, who arrived to office in May 2017, months after Biden’s two conditions as the U.S. vice president ended, appeared to have quick chemistry with the 78-year-old American. The two draped their arms around each other and chatted animatedly if they walked together following the leaders' photo at the beginning of Friday’s summit.

In remarks to reporters, Macron didn't utter Trump’s name but offered an unambiguous shot at the former president. Macron noted his his relief that with Biden, he was now dealing with an American president “willing to cooperate.”

“Everything you demonstrate is leadership is partnership,” Macron said of Biden.

During Trump's term, Macron tried to find common ground but often bristled at Trump's nativist rhetoric.

Macron, who spent some time working to portray France as a far more prominent power recently, also used the rise of Trumpism to help make the case for greater global European leadership.

He complained in November 2019 a insufficient U.S. leadership was causing the “brain death” of NATO, insisting within an interview with the Economist that the European Union must step up and start acting as a strategic world power. Biden, in his remarks, seemed to acknowledge Macron’s concerns, noting that Western Europe was providing “backbone and the support for NATO.”

During the summit, Biden also met with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa.

At the news headlines conference, Biden briefly confused Syria and Libya when he described the importance of providing humanitarian aid to countries torn apart by civil war. It was among a small number of verbal stumbles the president made.

Biden then traveled to Windsor Castle for an exclusive audience with the queen - becoming the 13th president to have met with the 95-year-old monarch. Biden greeted the queen on a dais in the castle courtyard and reviewed an assembled ceremonial guard before he and first lady Jill Biden joined her for tea.

He said in a short exchange with reporters that the queen asked him about Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin during their meeting. The president described her as “very gracious” and invited her to go to the White House.

“I don’t think she’ll be insulted, but she reminded me of my mother,” Biden said.

Madhani reported from Brussels and Miller from Washington.