“When I was with Xi Jinping – and I was with him on the Tibetan plateau – and he asked me for a private meal, he and I and we each had an interpreter, he said, ‘Can you America define for me? ? ” Biden tells during a swearing-in ceremony for new staff members. He said he simply responded: “Possibilities.”
The anecdote, which was served at his communion in 2011 at a restaurant in Chengdu, was designed to offer Biden’s view of the American dream while he took over the presidency. But it also serves as a deliberate reminder that he is entering the work with a long history of cultivating international actors that he will now encounter as an equal – and in some cases an adversary.
He begins his global campaign Friday afternoon by appealing to the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, a reliable traditional first diplomatic outing that is nonetheless full of tension: Biden has withdrawn a permit for the $ 9 billion Keystone XL pipeline, which oil from Alberta will be able to lead. across the border to the United States.
Biden will also speak with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Friday, another traditional first conversation for a new US leader.
He has long been a proponent of developing personal relationships with his interlocutors – whether Republicans, business leaders or foreign heads of state – Biden takes office, though he knows many of the figures he will deal with at world summits, in bilateral meetings and by telephone. . His stated goal is to re-establish the United States as a global arbitrator of the international order and, as he said on Wednesday during his inaugural address, ‘restore our alliances and reconnect with the world’.
Strong contrast
This is quite different from how Trump began his career in foreign diplomacy. As president-elect in 2016, he answered which leader happened to find his cell phone number, rather than calling through the state department. This led to embarrassment for leaders such as then-British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose ambassador to Washington scrambled to reach someone close enough to Trump who could call him America’s best ally.
After he was in office, the foreign leadership calls initially seemed more organized. Lists were compiled, times arranged and information cards prepared. But Trump, who mostly ignored the talking points offered by national security aides, often came outside the text and talked about what he wanted.
And those were the calls that other officials knew about. Trump readily handed over his cell phone number to his peers during his summit. And after his phone call with the Ukrainian president made his first accusation, the circle of people who could listen was dramatically reduced.
Personal relationships
It is unlikely that Biden will follow a similar approach, although one commonality may be his commitment to personal relationships over stacks of information books and talking points.
“I have met every major world leader for the past 35 years – not because I am important, but because of the nature of my work,” he said at the campaign last year.
“I would always have Obama (Obama) – I would say that all politics is personal, especially international relations,” Biden added. “You must get to know the soul of the other man or woman and who they are, and make sure they know you.”
Many of them already do. Biden has met Putin on several occasions, including when the Russian leader showed off his office in Moscow and Biden told him inches from his face that he did not believe he had a soul.
He will be the fourth US president to forge a relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he knows from his regular attendance at the security conference in Munich. He will eventually have to form a relationship with whoever replaces Merkel after she retires this year.
During his time as vice president, Biden did not deal closely with French president Emmanuel Macron, who was first elected in 2017.
But his relationship with Xi became the legend. The two traveled more than 10,000 miles together and sat for hours of private meals in China and the United States when they were each other’s peers and Biden was sent to take the temperature of China’s heir.
More complicated may be the leaders that Trump has cultivated for their own political purposes, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Johnson has already chosen not to make an issue of Biden’s decision to move a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office – a distant exclamation of his reaction when Obama did the same and he rejected the “partial Kenyan president’s dislike of the ancestral lack of the British Empire. ‘
“It is, of course, the job of every British Prime Minister to have a very close relationship with the President, a close working relationship with the President and a good working relationship with the President of the United States,” Johnson said this week. “And if you look now at the issues that unite me and Joe Biden, the United Kingdom and the United States, there is a fantastic common agenda.”
Foreign leaders
Administration officials said they did not expect foreign leaders to visit the White House anytime soon. Under Trump, foreign leadership visits also fell during the pandemic, although some – including Poland’s hardline leader and Israel’s Netanyahu – did make the move.
Even the traditional St. Patrick’s Day visit by the Irish leader in March turns out to be; Taoiseach Micheál Martin told CNN this week that it has not been decided whether to continue in the midst of the pandemic.
“I did invite President Biden to Ireland,” Martin told Christiane Amanpour. “He jokingly told me, ‘Try to keep me outside.’ “
In fact, Biden officials do not expect the president to travel abroad while the pandemic continues to rage, although he would like to start flying overseas.
“Despite his desire – if it is important – to make a trip abroad, I think it will be some time,” Jen Psaki, press secretary, said on Friday. “I do not have an update when it will take place at this stage.”
This year’s summit can only take Biden to the UK, where Johnson will host the G7 at a seaside resort in Cornwall in June. In the autumn, the G20 is scheduled for Rome. And Johnson is once again hosting leaders in Glasgow for a climate conference in November.
Biden himself promised to convene a summit for democracy during his first year in office, although details – including the guest list, location and whether it will be compiled in person – were not disclosed.
It leaves for the time being the telephone as Biden’s most important instrument for diplomacy, starting Friday at 5pm ET with Trudeau and later with López Obrador. Psaki said Biden will speak to leaders from Europe next week.
Although phone calls contain the chemistry found in the one-on-one meals Biden cherished, he does not start all over again.
One of his last trips as vice president was to a state dinner that Trudeau held in his honor during the Obama administration’s closing days. On the snowy night in Ottawa in a hall that included former prime ministers and Canadian politicians, Biden severed his personal ties with the country and its leaders.
He mentioned that his first wife, Neilia, had family ties to Toronto. He tells how his two sons wanted to be ‘Mounties’ when they grew up. And he mentions a call he received from Trudeau’s father, Pierre, who was then prime minister himself, in 1972 after his wife and daughter died in a car accident during the Christmas season.
“I lost my part of my family,” Biden said. “And your father was not only decent and honorable, but he also reached out. He reached out and talked to me about the loss of my wife and daughter.”
When he concluded, he appealed to Trudeau, who at the time seemed to be replacing Obama as the world’s leading liberal: “Vive le Canada. Because we need you very, very much.”