United States President Joe Biden’s first overseas trip sent out a clear message: America is back and Europe is its most trusted partner.

At the G7 and during summits at NATO and with the EU, Biden stressed American support for multilateralism and diplomacy as well as democracy around the globe.

This is a most welcome stance after the isolationist and ‘America First’ years of Donald Trump.

Biden also went some way in forging a common stand by the West in dealing with China and Russia. And he had a constructive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva. One hopes this might lead to the beginning of a thaw in relations between the Washington and Moscow.

G7 leaders agreed to counter China’s growing influence by offering developing nations an infrastructure plan that could rival President Xi Jinping’s multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative.

The G7 also stated their determination to reform and strengthen international organisations such as the WHO and the World Trade Organisation and agreed on steps to tackle global health threats and climate change.

At the NATO summit, the alliance officially acknowledged, for the first time, the growing political, economic and military influence of China as “presenting challenges” while stating its intention to maintain “a constructive dialogue with China where possible”. 

NATO also asserted that “Russia’s aggressive actions constitute a threat to Euro-Atlantic security” and officially recognised attacks in outer space and cyberspace as qualifying for collective defence. This comes as NATO grows increasingly concerned about China and Russia’s aggressive actions in space.

Biden stressed the importance of the US-EU partnership at a summit with EU leaders where both sides agreed to suspend a 17-year trade dispute over subsidies for Boeing and Airbus.

The US president made it clear that,  like NATO, the US-EU relationship is based on values. In this pandemic-stricken world, those values need to include collaboration and solidarity.

Biden also accepted several proposals made by the EU. One is the establishment of the EU-US Trade and Technology Council, which will serve as a forum for the US and the EU to coordinate approaches to key global trade, economic and technology issues.

Another is an EU-US high-level dialogue on Russia, which will better coordinate policies and actions vis-à-vis Moscow.

The last meeting of his trip was a summit in Geneva with the Russian president. The high-stakes encounter came three years after Trump met Putin in Helsinki and, shamefully, publicly backed his counterpart’s denial of Russian interference in the 2016 US election despite the conclusions of US intelligence.

Biden, in contrast, said he had been frank with the Russian leader about the Kremlin’s trampling of human rights and democracy. Disagreements were stated, Biden said, while stressing that Russia did not want a new Cold War. Putin felt the two “spoke the same language”.

Encouragingly, the two sides agreed to begin a dialogue on nuclear arms control and to return ambassadors to each other’s capitals – the envoys were mutually withdrawn in March after the US accused Russia of meddling in the 2020 presidential election.

However, there was no agreement on other issues, including cyber-security, human rights, the situation in Ukraine and the fate of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. To pursue these objectives, Biden needs to continue building a constructive dialogue with Russia and insist on its cooperation on these matters.

Progress on such issues will take time and patient diplomacy. It helps when the world’s democracies speak with one voice and Biden certainly managed to foster that during his European trip.

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