President Joe Biden landed in the United Kingdom on Wednesday, kicking off a series of meetings with European leaders at the G7 summit this weekend.
Biden spoke about his priorities for the trip before leaving the United States Wednesday morning.
“Strengthening the alliance and make it clear to Putin and to China that Europe and the United States are tight, and the G7 is going to move,” he said to reporters when asked about his goals for the trip.
Biden will meet with United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday before the G7 summit begins in Cornwall, U.K., on Friday. He will also meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Queen Elizabeth II during his trip and travel to Sweden to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Since Biden took office, he has proclaimed “America is back” and ready to engage the global community of nations after former President Donald Trump famously promoted a foreign policy that favored “America first.”
Trump was aggressive with Europe as part of his America First agenda — backing the populist United Kingdom referendum to exit the European Union, raising tariffs on the European Union, challenging Russia and Germany on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and pressing every nation to meet their NATO funding obligations.
European Council President Charles Michel rejoiced in Biden’s trip to Europe, proclaiming that “America is back.”
“It means that we have again a very strong partner to promote the multilateral approach … a big difference with the Trump administration,” Michel told reporters in Brussels on Monday.
Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan said Biden wanted to “rally” democratic nations against encroaching authoritarian regimes like China and Russia.
“He does want to show, rallying the rest of the world’s democracies, that democracies are the countries that can best deliver solutions for people everywhere,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One during the flight.
Sullivan said Biden wanted to prove that Democracy had the best solutions to fight the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, economic recovery, as well as “basic human rights and human dignity of all people.”
As part of his message, Biden plans to announce that the United States will purchase 500 million Pfizer doses of the coronavirus vaccine for global distribution.
This is the first time Biden will speak with world leaders as president of the United States, even though he has traveled the world for decades as a senator and a vice president.
“I will say that he’s been getting ready for 50 years,” Jen Psaki said to reporters on Tuesday about the president’s preparations for the trip. “He has been on the world stage. He’s known a number of these leaders for decades.”