Both leaders signed a new Atlantic Charter adapted to the 21st century
“We are committed to working closely with all partners who share our democratic values,” they said from Downing Street. On his first international trip, the US president will participate in the G7 summit
In their first face-to-face meeting, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson emphasized the historic alliance between their countries, leaving aside the tensions that the application of Brexit causes in the British region of North Ireland. The President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom signed a new “Atlantic Charter”, following the model of the one agreed by their predecessors Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill 80 years ago but taking into account new threats such as cyberattacks and the climate crisis. Biden began his journey by meeting Johnson in Carbis Bay, a seaside town in the south-west of England where he will participate in the G7 summit from Friday to Sunday.
Covid-19 and climate change
Stimulating the coronavirus vaccination program and climate change are high on the summit agenda, but the ongoing dispute between the UK and the European Union over regulatory controls on goods entering Ireland is likely. North from Great Britain also focus some discussions. This first international trip of the US president seeks to mark the “return” of his country to multilateralism after the mandate of Donald Trump.
“Although the world has changed since 1941, the values remain the same,” they said from Downing Street. “We are committed to working closely with all partners who share our democratic values and to counter the efforts of those who seek to undermine our alliances and institutions,” they added after the meeting between Biden and Johnson.
The original version of the Atlantic Agreement was signed in 1941 by Presidents Roosevelt and Churchill in the midst of World War II and served to mark the objectives of the United States and the United Kingdom after the conflict. In the new document, both countries oppose “interference through disinformation and other malicious influences, including those that occur in elections” and add a point of special interest to the United States on “modern threats” and more specifically cyberattacks, noting that NATO will continue to be their “nuclear alliance.”
The last part of the new letter talks about climate change and reiterates the commitment of both leaders to the creation of a just global economy that does not impact the climate, and echoes the “catastrophic effect of the health crises” highlighting the need to strengthen “collective defenses”.
Brexit and the Irish
Tensions surrounding Brexit enforcement in Northern Ireland threatened to cloud the friendly meeting between Biden and Johnson. The Democratic president, very proud of his Irish ancestry, dislikes London’s attempts to breach trade commitments made with the European Union in the so-called “Northern Irish protocol”.
This protocol makes it possible to avoid having to reimpose a land border between Northern Ireland and the neighboring Republic of Ireland, a member of the European Union, after Brexit, but makes it difficult to send goods to that British region from the rest of the United Kingdom. The so-called “Good Friday Agreement” of 1998, reached with the participation of former US President Bill Clinton, ended the violence between Catholic Republicans and Protestant unionists that left some 3,500 dead in 30 years of conflict.
“Progress must be protected” since then, Biden told Johnson privately according to a senior US official. But “the idea is not to enter into a confrontation or appear as an adversary, he has not come to give lessons,” added the same source.
Throwing the issue down, Johnson said there is “a ground of total understanding” between the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. “We all want to preserve the Good Friday Agreement and make sure that we maintain the balance of the peace process,” said the prime minister, calling his conversation with Biden a “breath of fresh air” stating that he “no” conveyed to him that he was alarmed because of the situation in Northern Ireland.
This situation would not be so clear to the European Union, accused by London of legal “purism” and lack of pragmatism. “The protocol must be applied in its entirety”, insisted from Brussels the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, assuring that she will raise the issue in the G7.
Beyond disagreement, if Johnson’s populist style has earned him comparisons to Trump, a fervent Brexitist, the British conservative is more in tune with the Biden administration on big international issues, such as the climate crisis or the challenges posed by China. and Russia.
At the summit of rich countries, the first to be held in person in two years and which will be dominated by debates around the pandemic, the US president, criticized for his slowness in sharing vaccines with the rest of the world , will put on the table the promise to buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine to donate to other countries, 200 million of them this year.
“It is our humanitarian duty to save as many lives as possible,” Biden said after the meeting with Johnson, calling this aid to developing nations a “historic step”. The other priority of the G7 will be the fight against climate change, very important for the United Kingdom, which in November organizes the UN climate conference COP26 in Glasgow.
Following the summit, Biden will be greeted by Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle on Sunday and will then attend the NATO meeting in Brussels before another summit with the European Union. His long trip to Europe will culminate in Geneva on Wednesday, where he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
June 11, 2021
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