Biden heads to international summits in Peru and Brazil as world leaders brace for Trump’s presidency

On By Pranco

Aamer Madhani
| Associated press

Washington – President Joe Biden begins his six-day visit to Peru and Brazil on Thursday for the last major international summits of his presidency, as world leaders turn their attention to what Donald Trump’s return to the White House means for their countries.

The visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru and the stops in the Amazon rainforest and the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Brazil offer Biden one of his last opportunities as president to meet the heads of state with whom he has worked together in recent years.

But the eyes of world leaders are firmly on Trump.

They are already burning Trump’s phone with congratulatory messages and taking stock of his choices for key national security and foreign policy positions.

At least one leader, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, is dusting off golf clubs he hasn’t used in eight years, in case an opportunity arises to bond with the golf-loving Trump.

“This will not be a swan song for Biden,” said Erin Murphy, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “He is not only a lame duck, but also a super lame duck because his successor will pursue a completely different policy.”

White House officials emphasize that Biden’s visits to APEC and the G20 will be substantial, with discussions on climate issues, global infrastructure, counter-narcotics efforts and one-on-one meetings with world leaders, including China President Xi Jinping, and a joint meeting with South Africa. Korean Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

“He will deliver the same message he has had for the last four years as president, which is that he believes America’s allies are essential to America’s national security,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters after Biden had hosted Trump for Oval Office conversations. Wednesday. “They make us stronger. They multiply our possibilities. They take a burden off our shoulders.”

That broad discussion between the Democratic president and the Republican president-elect was about the conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine.

“I wanted – I asked – for his views, and he gave them to me,” Trump told The New York Post after his conversation with Biden.

Sullivan indicated that White House officials are also making clear to Trump’s team that the delicate U.S.-China relationship is the “first priority for the new administration.”

Trump has announced that he will nominate Florida Senator Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and that Florida Rep. Mike Waltz will become his national security advisor. Both Republican lawmakers are known China hawks.

The White House had been working for months to arrange the meeting with Xi, whose country is the United States’ most prominent economic and national security rival.

For Xi, Trump’s campaign promise to impose 60% tariffs on Chinese imports will be paramount. White House officials avoided commenting in detail on how Biden will approach conversations with Xi and other world leaders about Trump.

Those officials say Biden will also use the summits to pressure allies to maintain support for Ukraine as the country tries to fend off Russia’s invasion and eyes an end to the wars in Lebanon and Gaza will lose. That includes bringing home hostages held by Hamas for more than thirteen months.

Between summits, Biden will visit the Amazon rainforest, the first visit by a sitting US president.

James Bosworth, founder of Latin America-focused political consultancy Hxagon, said Biden will use one of his last big moments in the international spotlight “to reassure the world that transfers of power are normal for democracies.”

“Biden will receive public applause and praise, even as world leaders nervously await the transition,” Bosworth said.

Biden’s meeting with Xi will likely be the most consequential moment during the US president’s stay in South America.

It will be their first conversation since a phone call in April. They last met in person at a California estate on the sidelines of last year’s APEC summit.

Biden has sought to maintain a steady relationship with Xi even as the U.S. government has repeatedly expressed concern about what it sees as malign action by Beijing.

U.S. intelligence officials have determined that China has increased sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow uses to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry against Ukraine. The Biden administration last month imposed sanctions on two Chinese companies accused of directly helping Russia build drones for long-range strikes.

Tensions flared last year after Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon flying across the intercontinental United States. And the Biden administration has criticized Chinese military assertiveness toward Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Sullivan said he expected Biden would also launch a U.S. investigation into an alleged Chinese hacking operation targeting cellphones used by Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and people linked to Democrat Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

During the campaign, Trump talked about his personal bond with Xi, which started off well during the Republican’s first term before coming under strain over disputes over trade and the origins of COVID-19.

In a congratulatory message to Trump, Xi called on the US and China to manage their differences and get along in a new era, Chinese state media said.

Biden finds himself in a position somewhat similar to when then-President Barack Obama traveled to Peru for the annual meeting of APEC leaders in 2016, shortly after Trump’s first victory in the White House.

World leaders bombarded Obama with questions about what Trump’s surprise victory would mean. Obama urged leaders to be patient and see how things would go under Trump, who has pursued a protectionist “America First” agenda.

“Obama got a lot of questions about Trump, and his message was to wait and see… because we didn’t know Donald Trump,” said Victor Cha, a National Security Council official in the George W. Bush administration. “Now we are in a very different situation where we do know what the first Trump administration looked like.”

Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.