Over the course of President Joe Biden’s term, he’s held dozens of calls and multiple face-to-face meetings with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, all with the goal of deepening a relationship based on democratic ideals and shared values.
In return, Scholz spent considerable political capital on Biden’s behalf: Releasing a Russian murderer from a German prison as part of a deal that would free three Americans from Russia, loosening longstanding defense policy to allow Ukraine to use German-made tanks to fight Russia and coming to Biden’s defense after a debate performance spelled the end of his political career.
“I think it would be a big mistake to underestimate the president,” Scholz told PBS ahead of NATO’s 50th anniversary summit in Washington.
Now, with Biden out of a race that remains razor-thin and has allies on edge, Scholz will welcome the American president to Berlin, a visit to advance urgent foreign policy priorities as well as to offer a farewell tour of sorts for a president who prized alliances as the conduit for conflict resolution.
As part of the visit, Biden will meet with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Scholz, as well as announce a new US-German exchange program and dialogue on “aligning” private investment with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, according to a senior administration official.
Biden’s meeting with the chancellor will provide him an opportunity to thank the German leader for their close partnership over the years and discuss shared priorities on global issues, especially democratic institutions.
In addition to sitting down with German leadership, Biden will also meet with the leaders of the UK, France and Germany for a “European Quad” meeting to discuss “pressing” global challenges, from Ukraine’s victory plan to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, the senior official said.
And while the meetings will take place a critical juncture, with American voters heading to the ballot box in less than three weeks and amid inflection points in Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict, the White House does not expect any concrete policy changes to result from Biden’s visit.
During a single day of official meetings, downgraded from the official state visit planned before Hurricane Milton hit the US, Biden will hold expanded discussions with Scholz and his team, as well as the summit including the leaders of France and the United Kingdom. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had planned to attend before the meeting was delayed.
The agenda for the summit, officials say, will feature two key priorities for the leaders: The growing challenges facing Ukraine, where allies are at odds over how to address Zelensky’s “Victory Plan,” and intensifying requests for longer-range weapons, and the deteriorating situation in the Middle East as Israel plots forthcoming retaliation for Iran’s most recent ballistic missile barrage.
The “European Quad,” as Western officials have termed it, represents just one of the smaller coalitions Biden has leaned on to build consensus, as populist winds on both sides of the Atlantic have caused wariness over large, global institutions.
Biden has instead opted for “minilateralism,” what foreign policy experts have come to term his strategy for dealing with smaller coalitions of like-minded nations.
On the policy front, the Biden administration has wielded this approach to coalesce support for sanctions against Russia and, more recently, Iran; tariffs and export controls against China, which the United States recently replaced as Germany’s largest trading partner; and hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment in Africa and southeast Asia meant to create a buffer against Beijing’s soft power.
Critics say these efforts have strengthened alliances – but not thwarted adversaries. Fred Kempe, CEO of the Atlantic Council, says Biden didn’t take decisive enough action to keep a new axis of evil from forming in response to Western democracies.
“Ironically, it is precisely Biden’s caution that has encouraged continued Russian, Chinese, North Korean, and Iranian misbehavior,” Kempe writes. “The US and allied response to the increased cooperation among these countries continues to fall short of actions that would frustrate their common cause.”
For Biden, embarking on a farewell tour of sorts as he faces his final months in office, Germany stands as one country where the president enjoys broad popularity, thanks to his policies.
According to Pew Research Center polling on views of Biden across 34 countries, 63% of German respondents expressed confidence in Biden. In Poland – another country where aides have considered having Biden visit to tout Ukraine support – 70% of respondents express confidence in Biden.
And in Kenya and the Philippines, two countries where the administration has ramped up engagement and spearheaded infrastructure projects to counter China’s influence, that confidence level rises to 75% and 77%, respectively, Pew data show.
Elsewhere around the world, Biden’s seen his approval rating drop markedly, largely due to his handling of the Middle East volatility after October 7.
“It’s pretty clear the perception of how he’s dealing with that conflict is behind the noticeable decline between 2023 and 2024,” says Richard Wike, Pew’s director of Global Attitudes Research. “But overall, he still gets higher ratings than Trump.”
With less than three weeks before the US election, Trump will be the elephant in every room where Biden meets with leaders. Many expressed relief behind the scenes after Biden’s election in 2020. Biden frequently recounts the response from another head of state at his first G7 summit when he proclaimed that “America is back:”: “But for how long?”
And as CNN has reported, foreign diplomats expressed worry privately after Biden’s halting debate performance appeared to catapult Trump back to an election lead.
Now, as they consider the trajectory of the war in Ukraine that’s been simmering on Europe’s doorstep for years, allies must face the question of whether to back more aggressive tactics to bring about a swifter end to the war, as Zelensky has urged, unsuccessfully.
The deliberations come at a much more fraught time than when President Barack Obama found himself assuring allies in Germany and Greece during his final foreign trip that Trump, named president-elect one week earlier, would not abandon them. At a news conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Obama tried to identify some forces that led voters on both sides of the Atlantic to seek change – but issued a broader warning of what was to come.
“We are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism of ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an ‘us’ and a ‘them,’” Obama told reporters from Athens, which he noted was the birthplace of democracy. “The future of the world is going to be defined by what we have in common as opposed to those things that separate us and ultimately lead us into conflict.”
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