WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will aim to assert America’s global leadership during his upcoming trip to Southeast Asia, which will be marred by a ruling on his presidency after Tuesday’s election.
The foreign policy challenges that helped define Biden’s first two years in office — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s rising influence — will be on full display at two summits in the region. Biden is gearing up for a potential one-on-one meeting with a newly empowered Xi Jinping, who won a custom-shattering third term as leader of the Chinese Community Party last month.
Biden will also face global economic challenges at the G20 summit, an annual gathering of leaders from the world’s largest economies. He will also try to reassure the nearly dozen countries that are part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that the United States is investing in the region while China is also increasing its influence.
The ASEAN Summit takes place in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Bali, Indonesia is the site of the G-20 summit.
Before that, Biden will be in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, at the COP27 UN climate conference. Unlike last year’s conference in Glasgow, Scotland, at this year’s gathering the President will be able to point to significant achievements at home, with the signing in August of legislation that will mark the largest investment in US history to tackle climate change will bring.
A look at the key issues that will dominate Biden’s seven-day trip. The first stop is in Egypt on Friday.
KEEP THE PRESSURE ON RUSSIA
More than eight months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden faces new challenges in his efforts to isolate Moscow. Elevated energy and food prices, and concerns in Europe about supplies of these vital commodities heading into winter, are testing global resolve to help defend Ukraine and punish Russia’s aggression.
At the G-20 summit, Biden will have his first opportunity to meet with two key new partners in this effort: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
The story goes on
Sunak, who took office last month after Liz Truss’ disastrously short tenure, has pledged to continue his Conservative predecessors’ steadfast support for Ukraine. He and Biden will develop new strategies to strengthen Ukraine’s defenses in the long term.
Meloni has pledged to continue providing arms and aid to Ukraine, but questions remain about her far-right coalition’s commitment to taking a stand against Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not made public whether he plans to attend the summit. Biden said he had no plans to meet with Putin but left the door open to talk if Putin wanted to discuss a deal to release Americans jailed in Russia.
Biden administration officials have coordinated with global colleagues to isolate Putin if he decides to attend in person or virtually. You’ve talked about boycotts or other signs of condemnation.
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AUTOCRAT NAVIGATION
Biden spoke of a global struggle between autocracies and democracies. But he must increasingly rely on less-democratic leaders to advance US interests, from Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who is hosting the climate conference, to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has defied US pleas to buy it to curtail Russian oil.
Biden used his remarks at the United Nations in September to emphasize that the US stands ready to work with all nations – regardless of their systems of government – to bring about change.
“The United Nations Charter was not only signed by the world’s democracies, it was negotiated by citizens of dozens of nations with vastly different histories and ideologies, united in their commitment to work for peace,” Biden said at the time.
The government says Biden has no plans to meet with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman after the OPEC+ cartel embarrassed Biden by cutting output months after his meeting with the crown prince in July. Biden blasted the move as suggesting Saudi Arabia is siding with Russia.
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DOMESTIC POLICY
American voters will pass judgment on Biden’s governance and two years of Democratic control of Washington on Tuesday. It’s not clear how soon control of the House and Senate will be known after Election Day. The White House has persistently tried to frame the midterms as a choice between dueling visions for the nation rather than a referendum on Biden’s term.
The Democrats are privately preparing to at least lose control of the House of Representatives. A series of Senate races that could tip power in the 50-50 chamber are considered toss-ups. Depending on the results, Biden could start his trip abroad politically significantly weakened.
The sharpest impact of Tuesday’s results in the United States abroad could be the future of aid to Ukraine. Though support for Aid has been largely bipartisan, conservatives have increasingly expressed skepticism about the wisdom of continued support, as has California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader poised to become Speaker of the House should Republicans win that chamber .
Still, some observers believed that whatever the verdict, the mid-term outcome would not have a material impact on Biden’s maneuvers abroad.
“These issues usually go beyond politics,” said Ash Jain of the Atlantic Council, citing Congress’s support for Ukraine and increased US competition with China. “Biden’s discussions with leaders on these issues will remain largely unaffected by the election outcome.”
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A MEETING WITH XI?
US and Chinese officials are working out the logistics of such a meeting between the two leaders, which would be the first such face-to-face meeting during Biden’s presidency. It could come at a time when Biden may face political punishment from US voters while Xi consolidated his power during the Communist Party congress that ended last month.
When it comes to a meeting, Biden will not be short of issues to raise with China, which the US administration now describes as its closest military and economic rival.
Tensions between the two nations over Taiwan have risen, particularly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August visit to the self-governing island and Biden’s repeated remarks that the US would defend Taiwan militarily if attacked by China – comments , which his aides have repeatedly made.
The issue of trade penalties for Trump-era Chinese goods also remains on the table. Biden is also likely to raise the issue of human rights abuses, particularly against the Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in the Xinjiang region. China has also refrained from publicly confronting Russia over Ukraine, although Putin said Xi privately conveyed “concerns and questions” about the invasion when the two met in Uzbekistan in September.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, stressed Friday that the US government has never asked other countries to effectively choose between it and China, acknowledging that each nation can build relationships based on its own interests .
But “it will not change the fact that we want to continue to ensure that we are in the best possible position to compete strategically with China and to face the threats and challenges that China poses very physically and very tangibly – especially in the Indo-Pacific region,” Kirby added.
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KEEP CLIMATE CHANGE WITH THE PRESSURE
At the climate conference, Biden will highlight one of his key domestic policy accomplishments — Democrats’ massive health care and climate change bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
The U.S. commitment of roughly $375 billion over a decade to addressing climate change gives Biden greater leverage to press other nations to meet their pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition the global economy to cleaner energy sources.
Biden will be in a very different position from last year’s gathering, which came about during a particularly unfortunate phase in the bill’s tortuous path.
That summit resulted in additional global commitments to meet the temperature targets agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement, which Biden rejoined after then-President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal. But even with the new US law, America and the world still have a long way to go to meet emissions targets that scientists hope will curb global warming. And the political will to invest more – given the new headwinds for the global economy – is fading.
“There is a real gap in public policy reality from the ambition sealed in Glasgow,” said Joseph Majkut, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Energy Security and Climate Change program.
The global rush to move away from fossil fuels was tempered by the turmoil in world energy markets following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden is urging oil and gas producers to increase production to meet demand and slash prices that have funded the Kremlin’s war effort.
The prospects for a significant breakthrough are even slimmer with big emitters like China and India sending fewer high-level delegations. Biden administration officials have sought to lower expectations of the meeting’s outcome, instead viewing it as a return to US leadership on the issue.
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