President Joe Biden heads to Europe on Thursday for a slew of meetings with global leaders focused on the global economy and climate change, along with a formal visit to Pope Francis, as the president seeks to solidify some of his policy priorities both at home and abroad.
The trip is Biden’s second to the continent as president. He’ll first stop in Rome for the G20 summit, a gathering of the world’s major economies, before heading to Glasgow, Scotland for the U.N. Climate Change Conference.
In addition to meeting with the pope, he’s also scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, who last month recalled his country’s ambassadors from the U.S. after the Biden administration announced a submarine deal with Australia that was seen as an unexpected snub to France.
And as Biden prepares to talk about his economic and climate objectives with world leaders, his domestic goals on the same issues are closer to the finish line than ever, as Democratic lawmakers and the White House hammer out the final details of their sweeping social and climate spending package.
President Biden hopes to fly to Europe Thursday with at least an outline of a deal in hand as he meets with world leaders, to both illustrate the United States’ concrete commitment to climate and to elevate his domestic policy values to the world stage.
“You’re going to see first hand, in living color, what foreign policy for the middle class is all about,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday when previewing the trip.
Friday: Meeting with the Pope, Italian leaders, French President Macron
After arriving in Rome on Thursday, President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit Vatican City on Friday, both for a larger, formal meeting with Pope Francis and time for the president and the pope to speak one-on-one.
It will be the president’s fourth time meeting the pope and “they’ve exchanged letters,” NSA Sullivan said Tuesday. They’re expected to discuss issues including “ending the COVID-19 pandemic, tackling the climate crisis and caring for the poor,” according to the White House.
FILE – In this Sept. 24, 2015, file photo Vice President Joe Biden shakes hands with Pope Francis on Capitol Hill in Washington, prior to the pope’s address to a joint meeting of Congress, making history as the first pontiff to do so. House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio is at right. Biden is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis this coming Friday at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
President Biden will then meet with his Italian counterparts, including President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Mario Draghi.
Finally on Friday, he will meet with French President Macron, as promised in Sept. after the diplomatic spat that unfolded after the U.S. rolled out a nuclear-powered submarine deal with Australia, usurping a longstanding submarine contract between France and Australia.
Biden and Macron first spoke by phone after the announcement, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a diplomatic trip to Paris earlier this month to help smooth things over.
FILE – In this Friday, June 11, 2021 file photo, from left, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen walk together during the G7 Summit, in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, England. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP, File)
Saturday and Sunday: G20 Summit
On the weekend, President Biden will participate in the annual summit of G20 countries, which represent the world’s largest economies and make up 80% of global gross domestic product altogether.
Outside of official sessions about the international economy, President Biden will engage with leaders “on the margins” as usual, National Security Adviser Sullivan said Tuesday.
He’ll be focused on at least three key topics, Sullivan outlined: supply chain issues and resilience, energy prices as the cost of gas remains high and the status of Iran’s nuclear program.
Several rounds of talks this year between U.S. and Iranian officials in Vienna weren’t enough to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which former president Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018.
“Obviously, we closely monitor the progress in Iran’s nuclear program,” Sullivan said Tuesday. “We had a lid on that program. Now we do not because we don’t have that deal. So our first and highest priority is to get back to the table.”
Earlier this week, the U.S. envoy to Iran said that negotiations were in a “critical phase” of determining whether or not the nuclear deal could be revived.
And more broadly, the U.S. hopes to come out of the summit with a concrete outcome — a final approval from the G20 countries to raise the global minimum tax on large companies to 15%, after years of talks on the issue that were boosted when President Biden took office.
The leaders of China and Russia will not attend the G20 gathering, though, making productive conversations with those countries “more difficult,” Sullivan admitted, though he said the U.S. still plans to engage with representatives from the two countries.
Monday and Tuesday: U.N. Climate Change Conference
The last leg of President Biden’s week in Europe will focus on climate, a core part of his domestic “Build Back Better” agenda as its final pieces are shaped in Washington.
Biden is scheduled to give a major speech at the conference, in which he’s likely to emphasize U.S. commitments to fight climate change and also paint those efforts as job creators. The president so far has set a goal of cutting carbon emissions in half by 2030 in order to get to net-zero emissions by 2050, with a focus on the economic benefits.
“When I think climate, I think jobs. Good-paying jobs, union jobs,” Biden said on a trip to Hartford, Conn. to promote his agenda earlier this month.
Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in Sept., President Biden also doubled the United States’ financial commitment to international climate financing to $11.4 billion annually.
But it’s unclear what concrete achievements the president will have to take with him to Europe this week, since the final climate framework in the Democrats-only bill is still undefined.
For one, the Clean Energy Performance Program — which incentivizes utility companies to switch to clean energy — is unlikely to be included since Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., opposes it. Democrats have been trying to replace it with something else.
Protesters gather to call on the Biden administration to do more to combat climate change and ban fossil fuels outside the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Sullivan said Tuesday the president “intends to make good” on his climate commitments so far, regardless of the status of the spending bill.
“Whether there is a deal this week or whether the negotiations continue, there will be a lot of energy and enthusiasm for the effort,” he said.
Biden’s agenda in the balance
President Biden as recently as Monday said that he hopes to have a deal in hand when he leaves the country this week, and Democrats had set a goal of wrapping up negotiations by Oct. 31, before Biden heads to Glasgow.
But White House officials shied away from that deadline on Tuesday, instead indicating that the progress made in recent weeks would be enough evidence of climate action and other policy goals.
“I think what the allies are looking at is the effort that President Biden has undertaken to design and now negotiate an ambitious, effective practical set of investments,” Sullivan said Tuesday.
“You’ve got a sophisticated set of world leaders who understand politics in their own country and understand American democracy,” he added. “I don’t think that world leaders will look at this as a binary issue. Is it done? Is it not done? They’ll say: Is President Biden on track to deliver on what he said? He’s going to deliver and we believe one way or the other he will be on track to do that.”
Top Democrats on Tuesday were optimistic, saying the Build Back Better plan was in its homestretch.
“I believe a final deal is within reach,” said Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York after Democratic senators’ policy lunch.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks to reporters following a Democratic strategy meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The president also hosted several House Democrats at the White House Tuesday afternoon. It’s one of a handful of potential meetings on his agenda this week, since his team has purposely kept his schedule lighter until he leaves Thursday.
The goal, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, is to get as close as possible to a deal by then.
“That’s why we’re pressing so hard,” she told reporters in the briefing room.
