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Biden to raise pandemic, economic challenges posed by China at G-7
The summit, to be hosted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday, will be the first gathering of G-7 leaders since April last year, a session also held via teleconference due to the pandemic.
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President Joe Biden speaks as he makes a statement at the South Court Auditorium at Eisenhower Executive Building February 10, 2021 in Washington, DC. President Biden made a statement on the coup in Burma. (Agence France Presse/Alex Wong/Getty Images)
U
S President Joe Biden will discuss the global response to the coronavirus pandemic, the world economy and economic challenges posed by China during an upcoming virtual meeting of the Group of Seven nations, the White House said Sunday.
The summit, to be hosted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday, will be the first gathering of G-7 leaders since April last year, a session also held via teleconference due to the pandemic.
For Biden, the event will be his first major international meeting since his January inauguration and will provide an opportunity to demonstrate his intent to return the United States to a multilateral foreign policy approach, in a shift from his predecessor Donald Trump who called the G-7 an "outdated" framework and pursued a unilateral "America First" policy.
The White House said Biden will discuss plans to overcome the pandemic, including coordination on vaccine production and distribution, while calling for the need for all industrialized countries to maintain economic support to aid the global recovery.
He will also touch on the "need to make investments to strengthen our collective competitiveness and the importance of updating global rules to tackle economic challenges such as those posed by China," according to the White House.
The virtual summit will take place ahead of a planned face-to-face gathering of leaders in June in Cornwall, southwest England. The G-7 groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, plus the European Union.
The British government said Saturday that Johnson plans to discuss in the Friday meeting how the world's "leading democracies" can work together to ensure equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines worldwide and to prevent future pandemics.
The discussion will take place as China is stepping up its so-called vaccine diplomacy, offering its home-developed COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries in an effort to boost its global clout.
But fears linger over the safety and efficacy of its vaccines, amid skepticism that Beijing may not be fully disclosing information about them.
Johnson will also call for leaders to work together on "a joined-up global approach" to pandemics that brings an end to the "nationalist and divisive politics that marred the initial response to coronavirus," the British government said in a press release.
