Biden travels to Germany and Spain to meet with allies against Russia and China

2022-06-25 15:10:54 By : Mr. Vincent Brush

Another US priority at the G7 will be launching "a global infrastructure partnership" to support low- and middle-income countries.The President of the United States, Joe Biden, begins this Saturday a European mini-tour that will take him to Germany to participate in the G7 summit and then to Spain to attend the meeting of NATO Heads of State and Government, with the aim to consolidate its alliances with Russia and China.As National Security Council Communications Coordinator John Kirby explained this week at the G7 and NATO summits, Biden will focus on "revitalizing alliances and collaborations" to support Ukraine, hold Russia accountable for the invasion and meet the challenges that China poses in the long term.Without a doubt, the war in Ukraine will mark the meetings that Biden holds with his allies during this visit, without losing sight of the Chinese threats.During this trip, the US president "will carry out face-to-face diplomacy with various international leaders and organizations," said Kirby, who stressed that the president values ​​personal treatment in the diplomatic field.Upon his arrival on German soil, Biden will travel to Schloss Elmau, in the south of the country, to meet with the leaders of the six other most industrialized countries in the world, that is, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Italy and Japan.The White House has explained that at the G7 the president will seek to coordinate closely with allies on priorities such as "further isolating Russia from the global economy, damaging Russia's defense supply chain, and ending sanctions evasion." Moscow.Another US priority at the G7 will be launching "a global infrastructure collaboration" to support low- and middle-income countries;an initiative that the group's leaders agreed to explore at their summit last year in the UK.Beyond the collective meetings, Biden plans to hold a bilateral meeting in Germany with Foreign Minister Olaf Schultz, who will host the summit.From Schloss Elmau, the US president will travel to Madrid, where he will arrive on Tuesday, the 28th, to take part in the NATO summit.Before that appointment, which will take place from June 29 to 30, Biden will have two bilateral meetings with the King of Spain, Felipe VI, and the head of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez.Sources from the Spanish Executive indicated that the US president will meet with Sánchez on Tuesday at the Moncloa Palace and, after an appearance together before the media, will meet with the monarch at the Royal Palace.The White House has indicated that the two meetings will be to reaffirm "the strong bilateral relationship" and review the preparations for the NATO summit.Spanish sources have stressed that the purpose of the meeting between Sánchez and Biden is to "reinforce, update and renew the strategic partnership" between Spain and the US, and that they give the "maximum importance" to their visit, the first since they arrived in the White House in January 2021 to replace Donald Trump.A day later the NATO meeting will begin, where the partners will announce new commitments to their posture of strength to consolidate Euro-Atlantic defense and will launch the alliance's new strategic concept, with the conflict in Ukraine in the background and without losing sight of China.In this sense, Kirby has anticipated that the US will announce "measures" to strengthen European security, along with the "great new contributions expected" by the allies.In this regard, a high-ranking White House official said this week in a call with journalists that Washington wants to ensure that NATO has sufficient resources to meet its commitments and, in this regard, noted that US allies. The US have increased their defense spending over the past seven years."We expect this upward trajectory to continue and accelerate in the coming months and years," she stressed.For the first time, the summit will be attended by leaders from the Indo-Pacific region, such as Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, all of them US allies in their competition against Beijing.Biden will travel accompanied by the American first lady, Jill Biden, who will begin her visit to Madrid next Monday, one day before her husband arrives, and who will star in several events with Queen Letizia, including a visit to the refugee center Ukrainians from the Madrid town of Pozuelo de Alarcón.Jill Biden will share acts with the queen for four consecutive days.On Monday morning, Doña Letizia will receive her at the Palacio de la Zarzuela and, later, they will visit the headquarters of the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC) to learn about the work that this entity carries out against the disease.The agenda of both will continue on Tuesday with a visit to the reception center for Ukrainians in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), which the king and queen and their daughters, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía, already visited last April.In the afternoon, they will meet again at the Royal Palace for the dinner that the king and queen will offer to the leaders of the 30 NATO countries that will participate in the summit.On Wednesday and Thursday, in parallel to the meeting of the allied countries, there will be an agenda of events for the consorts of the heads of state and government, where the queen will once again coincide with the American first lady.© HERALDO DE ARAGON EDITORA, SLU Telephone 976 765 000 / - Pº.Independencia, 29, 50001 Zaragoza - CIF: B99288763 - Registered in the Mercantile Registry of Zaragoza in Volume 3796, Book 0, Folio 177, Section 8, Sheet Z-50564 Any reproduction without written permission from the company is prohibited for the purposes of the article 32.1, second paragraph, of the Intellectual Property Law