LONDON – United States President Joe Biden is making a brief visit to Britain, during which he will meet British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and discuss climate change issues with King Charles III ahead of the upcoming Nato summit.
The White House said the trip was designed “to further strengthen the close relationship between our nations”.
Mr Biden will visit Downing Street on Monday for a low-key meeting with Mr Sunak, their fifth in as many months and just a month after the two agreed in Washington to an “Atlantic Declaration” and to work together on advanced technologies, clean energy and critical minerals.
Mr Sunak’s spokesman said the discussions would most likely include the upcoming Nato summit and Ukraine.
“As we face new and unprecedented challenges to our physical and economic security, our alliances are more important than ever,” Mr Sunak said in a statement released by his office on Saturday.
“The UK is Europe’s leading Nato ally; we are the United States’ most important trade, defence and diplomatic partner, and we are at the forefront of providing Ukraine with the support they need to succeed on the battlefield,” said Mr Sunak, who studied at California’s Stanford University and owns a penthouse flat in Santa Monica.
He has gone some way in repairing ties with Mr Biden after the relationship cooled under his predecessors Boris Johnson and Liz Truss owing to their tough stance over a post-Brexit deal with the European Union and Mr Johnson’s closer ties to former US president Donald Trump.
For Mr Biden, the more high-profile part of the trip will be his meeting with King Charles at Windsor Castle, to the west of London, where the monarch’s late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, hosted then US President Barack Obama in 2016 and Trump in 2018.
When the two men met at the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Scotland two years ago, Mr Biden praised the leadership of the then Prince of Wales on the subject, telling him: “We need you badly.”
“You are very kind for saying that,” Charles replied.
Following the meeting, Mr Biden and Mr Sunak will leave Britain for Lithuania, where Nato leaders will gather for a key summit.
Mr Biden is then expected to travel to Helsinki, Finland, for a meeting with Nordic leaders.
REUTERS
