President Joe Biden’s exit from the world stage this week was less of a dramatic mic drop and more of a slow fade from view, a low-key conclusion to a lengthy foreign policy career whose legacy is now under threat by Donald Trump.
Not quite a valedictory tour, Biden’s swing through South America was overshadowed by the incoming administration, with fellow leaders turning their attention and concern to Mar-a-Lago and the string of controversial picks Trump has made for his Cabinet.
In back-hallway conversations at summits in Peru and Brazil, delegations whispered among themselves about the incoming American team, looking for clues of what the next four years will hold. Biden was able to offer his counterparts few assurances; it wasn’t clear many were even looking for them.
Instead, the president and his team tried to use the trip to highlight accomplishments that many leaders and US officials now fear could be reversed or simply forgotten amid the change in administrations.
Even as he worked to burnish his legacy, however, Biden elected not to speak at length about his record or the new world his counterparts are about to enter. A statement delivered from the Amazon rainforest about his climate accomplishments ran only seven minutes; it was the longest address of his trip.
As he concluded his final speech to the G20 leaders Tuesday, warning them that “history is watching” as they make decisions on climate change, Biden cut himself off — choosing to leave unsaid the obvious reality that US climate policy would change drastically come January.
“And I’m not going to say anymore. I have much more to say, but I’m not going to,” he told the heads of the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations. “But thank you for focusing on this issue. I really think is the existential issue humanity faces.”
Biden takes his diminished role in stride
Joined by his daughter and granddaughter, Biden seemed to take his diminished position in stride, evincing little wistfulness as he bid farewell to fellow leaders with whom he’s spent the last four years working alongside.
Some, like China’s Xi Jinping, he’s known much longer. Behind closed doors, the two men put down their notes at the end of a two-hour meeting Saturday to reflect on their lengthy relationship and their willingness to get blunt about where they disagreed.
But even Xi appeared ready to move on to Trump as their talks got underway, issuing a loosely veiled warning to the incoming president and his team of national security hawks.
“Make the wise choice,” he said, sitting across from Biden in a vast conference room at the hotel where the Chinese delegation was staying. “Keep exploring the right way for two major countries to get along well with each other.”
A botched photo op Monday that left Biden and a handful of other leaders out of a group picture only furthered the impression of a world moving on.
As leaders including Xi, India’s Narendra Modi and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan all grasped hands and smiled for cameras, Biden was still inside talking with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Photographers urged organizers to delay the picture, calling out that Biden and others were missing. But the leaders dispersed, leaving Biden to confer with two of his aides afterward.
The moment was a fluke, the type of logistical error that’s almost inevitable at gatherings of almost two dozen world leaders. Yet it was difficult to ignore the impression it left: that Biden is disappearing from view as the world turns its attention to his successor.
Trump takes the spotlight
Already, Trump has received invitations from leaders eager to host him on a presidential visit once he takes office. In a congratulatory call, Erdogan invited the president-elect to visit his country in person, a bid to try to reset ties between the countries after tensions flared over trade and human rights during Trump’s first term.
In a video of the call posted on X, Indonesia’s president offered to fly anywhere to congratulate Trump in person. “I’d like to also get to your country some time,” Trump told him.
And Argentina’s president, Javier Milei — who held up work on a joint communique at the G20 this week over language around taxing the ultra-wealthy — became the first world leader to greet Trump in person following his election victory, attending a black-tie dinner at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and joining members with a dance to Trump rally anthem “YMCA.”
Biden’s aides this week have tried to avoid getting sucked into questions about the incoming administration’s intentions. They have refused to comment on even the most controversial selections Trump has made for his Cabinet, despite concerns from some world leaders at some of the names — including former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump chose to oversee intelligence agencies, and Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to head the Pentagon.
What members of Biden’s team have been willing to acknowledge is how little they actually know about what Trump and his team may be planning.
“The incoming administration is not in the business of providing us assurances about anything,” Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said in Peru. “They’ll make their own decisions as they go forward.”
A senior administration official speaking after Biden’s speech in the rainforest was blunter when asked whether Trump would continue sending American funding to help preserve the Amazon.
“Who knows?” the official said. “Maybe he’ll come down here and see the forest and see the damage being done from drought and other things and change his mind about climate change.”
Biden tries to keep the focus on his legacy
Biden himself has used his brief public appearances to pressure leaders into maintaining the projects he worked on, even after he exits the world stage.
During a visit to the Amazon rainforest — which the White House was quick to point out was a first for a sitting American president — he warned his successor against scrapping climate initiatives passed over the last four years.
“It’s true, some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that’s underway in America. But nobody, nobody can reverse it. Nobody,” Biden said, wearing a blue outdoor shirt in the sweltering Amazon heat.
But as he turned around and walked down a dirt path lined with lush foliage, Biden declined to answer any questions — about his climate initiatives or anything else.
In fact, Biden’s final set of summits represents the first major gathering of leaders where he’s declined to take questions from the press in a formal setting — a departure from his predecessors and his own tradition while in office.
In the Amazon rainforest, Biden delivered a short speech to a small pool of reporters before exiting the lectern silently. In Lima and Rio de Janiero, Biden fielded no questions from the press and his aides spoke only off-camera.
It’s a departure from Biden’s own tradition: Over the last four years, Biden and his team have preferred to hold news conferences while on foreign soil or while flanked at the White House by an allied leader. The latter format traditionally allows at least four questions from domestic and overseas press.
No news conference
Biden held news conferences at all four gatherings of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations during his term and in conjunction with every annual summit of NATO leaders; in 2023, the event was held with the president of Finland, NATO’s newest member.
Reporters had opportunities to ask Biden questions at the G20 summit in Rome in 2021, in Bali in 2022, and in Vietnam in 2023, following the summit’s conclusion in India the prior day. At the time, Sullivan blamed India’s Modi for withholding press access on-site at the G20 itself.
During a state visit to France in June, Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron delivered joint statements from the Elysée in Paris. At the time, officials had suggested that fielding questions from reporters — one week before Biden was scheduled to do so at the G7 summit — would be “duplicative,” according to a person briefed on the discussions.
Four months later, Biden pursued the same format with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on a visit to Berlin.
By contrast, then-President Barack Obama, following the election of Trump in 2016, took two opportunities while overseas to defend his record, acknowledge the change sought by the electorate and stake out what he saw as the US’ position in the world.
Speaking from the Lima Convention Center, the very same venue where Biden attended the APEC summit last week, Obama argued for enduring American leadership even in the the era of Trump.
“The American president and the United States of America — if we’re not on the side of what’s right, if we’re not making the argument and fighting for it, even if sometimes we’re not able to deliver at 100% everywhere — then it collapses,” Obama argued. “And there’s nobody to fill the void.”
