Biden looks to ease tensions with Europe, tackle climate change at global summits

ROME – With a proposal for his signature domestic agenda in congressional hands, President Joe Biden turns his attention to international affairs this weekend at a pair of global summits with some of the world’s most powerful leaders.

A catalog of complex issues ranging from climate change to the coronavirus pandemic to global supply chain disruptions awaits Biden and other leaders when they convene for the two-day Group of 20, or G-20, summit, which opens Saturday in a modernist, cloud-shaped convention center in Rome.

First, though, Biden, a devout Roman Catholic, and first lady Jill Biden had a private audience Friday with Pope Francis at the Vatican. Their motorcade arrived just before noon Rome time and was greeted by a dozen Swiss Guards in blue and gold striped uniforms.

Biden also sat down later Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron in an attempt to repair the damage from a diplomatic tussle with America’s oldest ally.

On Monday, he will head to Glasgow, Scotland, for a U.N. Climate Change Conference known as COP26, where he is expected to speak during the conference’s opening session.

For Biden, the European outing – his second foreign trip as president – comes at a critical moment in U.S.-international relations.

Tensions between the U.S. and China over issues such as trade, security and climate change show no signs of letting up. Biden had hoped to meet in person with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the G-20. But Xi, who hasn’t left his country in over a year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, is skipping the summit.

Other developments have caused friction with some of America’s European allies.

After four years of Donald Trump’s “America First” policies, Macron and other leaders no longer view the United States as a reliable partner and have made no secret of their desire to move away from their traditional reliance on the U.S.

The chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in August further frayed relations with European leaders, who grumbled that they weren’t properly consulted on the timeline for the pullout.

“There’s a lot of reassurance, I think, and conversations to be had between the American president and the Europeans,” said Benjamin Haddad, senior director of the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank on international affairs.

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Is America really back?

Biden has tried repeatedly to calm U.S. allies since taking office in January. “America is back at the table,” he announced at another global summit – the Group of Seven, or G-7 – in Cornwall, England, in June.

But 10 months into his administration, frustration with the U.S. persists in some European capitals, Haddad said.

“The administration created a really high expectation of a sort of reset in transatlantic ties with its ‘America is back’ rhetoric,” Haddad said. “…There was probably too high of an expectation that we could just turn the page of the last four years. Or maybe we attributed to Trump some of the policies that were more structural, such as the U.S. shift to China and to the Indo-Pacific.”

Biden will have a hard time convincing Europe that it can continue to rely on the U.S. given the state of American democracy, with a mob of Trump supporters storming the Capitol in January and Republicans continuing to question the legitimacy of last year’s election, said Jeremy Shapiro, a Berlin-based foreign policy expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“That ship has sort of sailed,” he said. “Because in addition to this problem of American competence is the problem of America’s focus on Asia, which is not a problem for all of the allies. But it is a problem for European allies for obvious reasons.”

White House National Security Adviser Jack Sullivan played down the notion of a rift in the transatlantic relationship. In just the past few weeks, he reminded reporters on Tuesday, the United States and the European Union have taken joint steps to fight the coronavirus pandemic, launched a global effort to cut methane emissions and announced a new partnership on trade and technology.

With neither Xi nor Russian President Vladimir Putin attending the Rome summit in person, the U.S. and Europe will be “energized and united at both the G-20 and COP26, driving the agenda, shaping the agenda as it relates to these significant international issues,” Sullivan said.

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An ambitious agenda

The Rome summit will mark the first time that leaders of the world’s major economies have gathered in person since the coronavirus pandemic inflicted its deadly toll around the globe.

The G-20, founded in 1999, works to address issues that impact the global economy, such as international financial stability, climate change and sustainable development. Besides the U.S. and the EU, other G-20 members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

G-20 countries make up more than 80% of the world’s gross-domestic product, 75% of global trade and 60% of the planet’s population.

In Rome, Biden and other G-20 leaders are expected to cement an agreement that would bring sweeping changes to the international tax system. Nearly 140 countries have agreed to adopt a global minimum tax of at least 15% and make it harder for multinational corporations to avoid taxation by hiding their profits in lower-tax jurisdictions.

The Biden administration has been pushing a 15% minimum tax on corporate earnings to force large companies to pay their fair share and to help pay for the president’s ambitious package of climate change and social safety net proposals.

On Thursday, just hours before he departed for Europe, Biden presented to congressional Democrats a framework for the package, including the corporate earnings tax.

The proposal, which came after weeks of negotiations, could pave the way for passage of the economic package and separate bipartisan infrastructure legislation to overhaul the nation’s roads, bridges and railways and expand broadband internet service.

Biden wanted a deal in hand before he left for Europe to give him leverage during the G-20 and climate change summits and to show foreign leaders that his administration can get things done.

In Rome, Biden will have the opportunity to talk with key leaders about other issues such as supply chain disruptions, energy prices and Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Also on the agenda are discussions about debt relief for the world’s poorest countries and vaccine distribution to low-income countries to help fight COVID-19. The U.S. already has donated 200 million vaccine doses to countries around the world.

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Repairing relations with France

One of Biden’s challenges in Europe will be patching up relations with France following an extraordinary diplomatic tiff last month.

The French fumed when the U.S. announced in September it was entering into a defense pact with Australia and the United Kingdom. The agreement, which is meant to counter growing Chinese military aggression in the Indo-Pacific, includes a U.S. commitment to help Australia develop a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.

Australia subsequently canceled a multibillion-dollar submarine contact it had with France. A furious Macron retaliated by recalling France's ambassador to the U.S. back to Paris. He allowed the ambassador to return to Washington a couple of weeks later after a phone conversation with Biden and a promise that the two leaders would meet in person in Rome.

Biden and Macron will likely emerge from their meeting on Friday with a U.S. commitment to step up military assistance to France’s counterterrorism efforts in Africa and a promise to make sure the French have a role in future discussions about the Indo-Pacific, Shapiro said.

“The French were genuinely surprised and upset and angry” over the submarine deal with Australia, “and they still are,” Shapiro said.

Even so, there hasn’t been any significant fallout, Shapiro said, “and there won’t be because there's nothing that the French can do.”

“They don't really have strong support from the European partners to do anything about it,” he said.

Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on Twitter @mcollinsNEWS.

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