Biden’s mission in Europe: Shore up the alliance against Russia
Visit comes amid soaring inflation in food, energy prices
MUNICH — President Joe Biden is out to sustain the global alliance punishing Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as he embarks on a five-day trip to Europe as the four-month-old war shows no sign of abating, and its aftershocks on global food and energy supplies deepen.
Biden first joins a meeting of the Group of Seven leading economic powers in Germany and later travels to Madrid for a summit with leaders of the 30 NATO countries. The visit comes as the global coalition to bolster Ukraine and punish Russia has showed signs of fraying amid skyrocketing inflation in food and energy prices caused by the conflict.
Biden was given a redcarpet welcome when he arrived in Munich Saturday night, greeted with Bavarian music, dozens of people in traditional dress and children presenting him with flowers. He also signed a guest book.
Biden and the G-7 leaders intend to announce a ban on importing gold from Russia, according to a person familiar with White House planning who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Gold is Moscow’s second-largest export, after energy.
The Ukraine war has entered a more attritional phase since Biden’s last trip to Europe in March, just weeks after Russia launched its assault. At that time, he met with allies in Brussels as Ukraine was under regular bombardment and he tried to reassure Eastern Europe partners in Poland that they would not be next to face an incursion by Moscow.
Russia’s subsequent retreat from western Ukraine and regrouping in the east has shifted the conflict to one of artillery battles and bloody houseto-house fighting in the country’s industrial heartland, the Donbas region.
While U.S. officials see broad consensus for maintaining pressure on Russia and sustaining support for Ukraine in the near term, they view Biden’s trip as an opportunity to align strategy for both the conflict and for its global ramifications heading into the winter and beyond.
Allies differ over whether their goals are merely to restore peace or to force Russia to pay a deeper price for the conflict to prevent its repetition.
John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the summit will address such problems as inflation and other “challenges in the global economy as a result of Mr. Putin’s war — but also how to continue to hold Mr. Putin accountable” and subject to “constant consequences.”
“There will be some muscle movements,” he said from Air Force One as Biden flew to Germany.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is set to address both summits by video. The U.S. and allies have shipped his country billions of dollars in military assistance and imposed ever stricter sanctions on Russia over the invasion.
Kirby said previously that allies would announce new “commitments” to further sever Russia from the global economy, make it more difficult for Moscow to acquire technology to rebuild the arsenal it has depleted in Ukraine, and crack down on sanctions evasion by Russia and its oligarchs.
G-7 summits have traditionally focused on global finance issues, but, amid soaring inflation in the U.S. and Europe, few concrete actions are expected.
“There are different drivers of inflation in these various economies, different things that can be used to address it,” said Josh Lipsky, director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. He foresees the “lack of an ability to do something coordinated on inflation, other than really talk about the problem.”
Biden has blamed much of the rise in prices on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, especially in energy markets, as U.S. and allied sanctions have limited Moscow’s ability to sell oil and gas.