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Biden, fragile at home, faces historic leadership task in Europe
For sure, Biden will tout the success of a monumental effort to rally the West and breathe new life into NATO -- a "high water mark in transatlantic solidarity in the post-Cold War period," according to a senior US official.
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US President Joe Biden falls off his bicycle as he approaches well-wishers following a bike ride at Gordon's Pond State Park in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on June 18, 2022. Biden took a tumble as he was riding his bicycle Saturday morning, but was unhurt. (AFP/Saul Loeb)
L
eader of the free world sounds like a superhero character, but the Joe Biden heading this week to twin European summits is in reality a politically fragile president tasked, somehow, with resolving an unenviable string of diplomatic problems.
Biden arrives Saturday in Germany for the G7 summit of major Western powers, followed next week by the NATO military alliance summit in Madrid.
Both sessions will take place in the shadow of Russia's Ukraine invasion, but also a global surge in inflation, fears of recession, and the ever-growing challenge of containing China while avoiding open conflict.
For sure, Biden will tout the success of a monumental effort to rally the West and breathe new life into NATO -- a "high water mark in transatlantic solidarity in the post-Cold War period," according to a senior US official.
But the less flattering picture is one of a 79-year-old politician whose approval rating at home has plummeted below 40 percent and whose Democratic party seems likely to lose control of Congress this November, giving way to vengeful Republican opponents.
As Donald Trump -- who spent four years in the White House shredding American alliances -- prepares his own possible revenge match in the 2024 presidential election, Biden is the first to admit that not all view the United States with confidence.
"I travel the world trying to put things back together," Biden told an audience of trade union members this month, and "no matter where I go... they look at me and I say — I say, 'America is back,' and they look and me and they say: 'For how long?'"
