Biden to face global challenges from China, Russia as he departs for first foreign trip

President Biden embarked on his first trip overseas since taking office Wednesday, a journey in which he will meet with G-7 and NATO allies to discuss ways to address the coronavirus pandemic and an increasingly aggressive China and Russia.

Biden departed Joint Base Andrews in Maryland Wednesday morning is set to arrive in the United Kingdom Wednesday night local time. His first order of business will be a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday, before joining G-7 leaders for the group’s summit over the weekend.

Biden is also expected to meet with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle, before traveling to Belgium for the NATO Summit, and later to Geneva for a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“This trip is about realizing America’s renewed commitment to our allies and partners,” Biden wrote in an op-ed previewing his trip in The Washington Post over the weekend. “Whether it is ending the COVID-19 pandemic everywhere, meeting the demands of an accelerating climate crisis, or confronting the harmful activities of the governments of China and Russia, the United States must lead the world from a position of strength.”

The trip is aimed at “making clear to Putin and to China that Europe and the United States are tight,” he told reporters before Air Force One departed Wednesday.

On China, the president is set to direct his focus on competitiveness in the marketplace, and the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. The president, last month, said U.S. intelligence officials had coalesced around two “likely scenarios” for the origin of the pandemic — zoonotic transmission or a leak from a laboratory in Wuhan. Biden gave the intelligence community 90 days for additional review to get to the bottom of how the pandemic began.

The president, in his op-ed, said that the world’s major democracies should invest in infrastructure to provide a “high-standard alternative to China for upgrading physical, digital and health infrastructure that is more resilient and supports global development.”

The Biden administration has warned that China “has rapidly become more assertive” and “is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”

“As new technologies reshape our world in fundamental ways, exposing vulnerabilities like ransomware attacks and creating threats such as invasive AI-driven surveillance, the democracies of the world must together ensure that our values govern the use and development of these innovations – not the interests of autocrats,” Biden wrote.

As for ransomware attacks, the White House this week said the topic is a “national security priority,” specifically related to critical infrastructure in the U.S., and maintained that the president will “treat it as such in the G-7 and on every stop along the way” on his trip.