Five things to watch on Biden's European trip

 By Olivier Knox

with research by Caroline Anders

The big idea

Five things to watch on Biden's European trip

President Biden is scheduled to leave Thursday for Rome, the first stop on a five-day trip to Europe that will take him from an audience with Pope Francis, to meetings with Group of 20 leaders, and finally a hunt for consensus at a United Nations climate summit known as COP26.

Biden’s trip opens on Friday with his first meeting as president with Francis, followed by talks with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Mario Draghi, then a bilateral get-together with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Over the weekend, the president will attend G-20 events. At COP 26, in Glasgow, Scotland, Biden will give a speech at what could be the last major international summit before some of the effects of the climate crisis become irrevocable.

Here are five things to watch during Biden’s trip:

FIRST, HIS AUDIENCE WITH POPE FRANCIS: HOW PUBLIC WILL IT BE? WHAT WILL THEY DISCUSS?

I noted in this space a week ago that presidential meetings with popes frequently broach controversial, even divisive issues in American politics, and that this is likely to follow that pattern. For example, the two leaders are apart on abortion rights, which Biden personally opposes but supports as a matter of policy, but closer on the death penalty, which he has promised to try to eliminate. Francis has already cautioned conservative American bishops pondering whether to deny Biden Communion to be pastors not politicians.

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The media will get a limited look at this meeting, Biden’s third with Francis but his first since taking office in January. There’s a possibility American reporters following the president might not get more than a distant glimpse of a handshake and inaudible pleasantries. Unlike other face-to-face meetings with world leaders, there’s no traditional sharing of public statements, during which they might lay out areas of disagreement or agreement.

So the first thing to watch is how publicly the two embrace. And, after the meeting, reporters will pore over the official summaries from either side, as well as reporting in L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper.

SECOND, EMMANUEL MACRON: IS THE AUSTRALIAN SUB DISPUTE TRULY OVER?

Back in September, France denounced Biden’s announcement the United States would form a defense partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom. As part of the new arrangement, negotiated in secret, the U.S. and U.K. will share nuclear submarine technology with Australia, which dropped a $66 billion submarine contract with France.

French officials compared Biden to former president Donald Trump, and condemned the new pact as the betrayal of an ally. Since then, French officials have been coolly professional, while their American counterparts have been eager to say relations are back to normal. This would be the highest-profile opportunity to embrace the journalistic adage “show, don’t tell.”

THIRD, THE G-20: WHAT ACTUALLY GETS DONE?

Presidents have been known to privately shrug at large multilateral summits like the G-20 as “small talk in big rooms” because they so rarely convene with the goal to reach concrete agreements, as opposed to deals-to-make-a-deal, or mere statements.

At a pre-trip briefing Tuesday, Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan made it pretty clear that the president has one clear “deliverable.”

“We do need the G-20 to ultimately, as I said at the top, cement progress at the end of the day and have leaders fully put their blessing on the global minimum tax,” he said. That levee would run 15 percent and would affect some of the world’s most profitable companies.

Sullivan noted Biden’s agenda at the G-20 would cover a wide range of other issues — efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear program, lubricate the jammed global supply chain, “and so much else,” but action on the tax, which has won approval in other international forums, seems like the most likely concrete achievement.

FOURTH, CHINA AND RUSSIA WILL BE ABSENT: DOES IT MATTER?

Chinese President Xi Jinping will only be present virtually at the G-20 and COP26. Same with Russian President Vladimir Putin. How will that affect both gatherings?

At Tuesday's briefing, Sullivan said the U.S. “can have constructive conversations with both of them” but allowed “it will be more difficult to do in this circumstance.” Other officials have expressed concerns that easing Sino-U.S. tensions is harder via teleconference than in person. And there are worries China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, might be less inclined to work for a compromise if Xi is back home.

FIVE, CLIMATE: WHAT IF CONGRESS DOESN’T GIVE BIDEN A PRE-TRIP VICTORY?

For months, U.S. officials have said publicly and privately they’d prefer to have the president arrive in Glasgow bearing fresh American commitments rather than old American promises. Why would other leaders risk political capital if the U.S. isn’t taking concrete action, the thinking goes.

But with Republicans in lockstep opposition, that will depend on finding intra-Democratic compromise, which has proven elusive.

On Tuesday, Sullivan played down the potential impact.

“You've got a sophisticated set of world leaders who understand politics in their own country, and understand American democracy, and recognize that working through a complex, far-reaching negotiation on some of the largest investments in modern memory in the United States — that that takes time,” he said.

But those sophisticated world leaders are also aware history teaches Biden’s Democratic majority will be gone after November 2022, and with it the likelihood of ambitious, necessary action on climate.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan

“We do need the G-20 to ultimately, as I said at the top, cement progress at the end of the day and have leaders fully put their blessing on the global minimum tax.”