President Joe Biden will travel to Germany and Spain in the coming days to attend G-7 and NATO summits.
Senior administration officials briefed reporters Wednesday ahead of Biden’s trip and noted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address both bodies while the president visits. Officials say Ukraine will remain at the forefront of discussions at both summits.
The president previously told reporters that it is “not likely” that he will visit Ukraine on the trip.
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The G-7 Leaders’ Summit is being hosted by Germany, and Biden will meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz before heading to the summit location in the Bavarian Alps. The group also invited nonmembers Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal, and South Africa to discuss cooperative responses to challenges facing the global community.
Senior administration officials added that specific deliverables would be announced as the summit progresses but outlined a brief four-point framework:
- Roll out a concrete set of new proposals to put pressure on Russia and show continued allied support for Ukraine.
- Demonstrate the impact the ongoing war is having on the price of global goods and services.
- Advance a view of the world that prioritizes “freedom and openness,” not “coercion,” and specifically address the global challenges presented by China.
- Launch a new global infrastructure partnership to lift up low- and middle-income countries in a manner that advances U.S. economic and security interests
Following the G-7 summit, Biden will travel to Madrid for an expanded NATO summit. There, the president will hold bilateral meetings with Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister, and King Felipe VI.
“Certainly one of the president’s top priorities when he came into office was to revitalize our alliances, and I think we are seeing one of the strongest demonstrations of that within the context of NATO,” an official stated. “I would also add that within the context of Ukraine, to the extent that Putin’s objective was to try and sow disunity, he has clearly failed.”
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That person proceeded to claim that NATO’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been “a high watermark in solidarity in the post-Cold War period.”
