Our live coverage has ended. Read more about Biden’s foreign trip here.
President Biden held a bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson today in Carbis Bay, England, as he kicked off his first foreign trip since taking office. His first full day in the UK was also filled with some major global announcements.
Here’s a recap of today’s biggest moments — and what comes next:
CNN’s Betsy Klein, Kevin Liptak, Kate Sullivan, Maegan Vazquez and Sam Fossum contributed reporting to this post.
President Biden cast his purchase of 500 million Pfizer vaccine doses as a commitment akin to America’s participation in World War II, saying on Thursday the United States’ values required it to help inoculate the world.
“America will be the arsenal of vaccines in our fight against Covid-19, just as America was the arsenal of democracy during World War II,” he said, harkening later to tanks and planes built near the Pfizer plant in Michigan during the war.
“Now, a new generation of American men and women…are committing today’s latest technology to build a new arsenal,” he said.
He sought to differentiate American efforts at sharing vaccines from Chinese and Russian distribution plans, saying the US “is providing these half a billion doses with no strings attached. Let me say it again: No strings attached.”
Speaking in the United Kingdom, an old ally, including during World War II, Biden said simply eradicating Covid-19 within US borders would not suffice.
“In this moment, our values call on us to do everything we can to vaccinate the world against Covid-19. It’s also in America’s self-interest,” Biden said in Cornwall, where leaders of the G7 are gathering this weekend for their first in-person summit since the start of the pandemic.
“As long as this virus rages elsewhere, there’s a risk of new mutations that could threaten our people. We know that raging Covid-19 in other countries holds back global growth, raises instability, and weakens government,” Biden said.
The United States, Biden said, must be “clear eyed that we need to attack this virus globally as well.”
“It is in all of our interest to have the global economy begin to recover as well. That won’t happen unless we can get this pandemic under control,” he said.
Speaking after Biden, Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla said it was the work of G7 nations to “shoulder the responsibility to vaccinate people in all countries.”
“Once again, the United States has answered the call, and we are grateful to you and your administration for your leadership on this front,” Bourla said.
President Biden is carefully crafting his message during his first trip abroad to show a united west, to challenge what he sees as an “aggressive Russia and a competitive China,” CNN’s Phil Mattingly reports, following Biden’s remarks in St. Ives, Cornwall, in England ahead of the G7 summit.
Mattingly also noted how Biden is making Covid-19 and the vaccine distribution a key component in his messaging to garner global support and assistance in the endeavor.
“The President is using these meetings, using the G7 really, to leverage the global effort, particularly on the western side of things, making clear it’s not just the US that’s buying and donating 500 million doses. He expects the other countries in the G7 to match, or make some type of similar effort as they try and leverage these relationships, leverage how the west operates, to be able to expand and scale up their capacity to donate and deliver over the course of the next several weeks and months and years,” Mattingly said.
In what he called a “major step that will supercharge the global fight” against the Covid-19 pandemic, President Biden announced that the United States will purchase 500 million doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to donate to nearly 100 nations that are “in dire need” around the world.
The vaccines will start to be shipped in August, with 200 million doses to be delivered this year, the President said while speaking in St. Ives, England. Three hundred million will be delivered in the first half of 2022, Biden said.
Biden highlighted the United States’ vaccination progress, saying the program has “saved tens of thousands of lives.”
“It’s allowed millions, millions of Americans to get back to living their lives. And from the beginning of my presidency, we’ve been clear-eyed that we need to attack this virus globally as well. This is about our responsibility,” Biden said.
“In this moment, our values call on us to do everything that we can to vaccinate the world against Covid-19. It’s also in America’s self-interest. As long as the virus rages elsewhere, there’s a risk of new mutations that could threaten our people,” he said.
Biden said the G7 nations would be announcing “the full scope” of their commitment tomorrow and he noted that the US vaccine donation is not “the end of our efforts to fight Covid-19 or vaccinate the world.”
“We have to turn manufactured doses into shots in arms to protect people and communities,” he said. “That’s why the United States is already providing hundreds of millions in funding to support last-minute vaccination efforts, including new funding from Congress as part of the American Rescue Plan. And working with programs in Latin America, Asia and Africa. We’re going to keep manufacturing doses. Donating doses. Getting jabs, as they say here in the UK, in arms.”
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he and President Biden were in “complete harmony” over the need to uphold the Good Friday Agreement, after talks in Cornwall, England, on Thursday ahead of the G7 summit.
“There’s a complete harmony on the need to keep going, find solutions and make sure we uphold the Belfast Good Friday Agreement,” Johnson said in a pool clip.
Johnson denied rumors that Biden had pressured him over the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol, adding that the US, UK and European Union “have one thing we absolutely all want to do, and that is to uphold the Good Friday, the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and make sure we keep the balance of the peace process going.”
“And that’s absolute common ground. And, you know, I’m optimistic that we can do that,” he added.
Johnson said that the pair had “renewed” the relationship between the UK and the US, and covered a “huge” range of subjects, including security, NATO and climate change. “It’s fantastic. It’s a breath of fresh air,” he added.
The Belfast Agreement, also known as the Good Friday Agreement, was signed in April 1998, restoring self-government to Northern Ireland, and setting the stage to create their own power-sharing government with a 108-member Assembly.
President Biden said his bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “very productive” and reaffirmed the special relationship between the countries, in his remarks from St. Ives, Cornwall in England ahead of the G7 summit.
“We discharged and discussed a broad range of issues on which the United Kingdom and the United States are working in very close cooperation. We affirmed the special relationship, as it’s not said lately, the special relationship between our people, and renewed our commitment to defending the enduring democratic values that both our nations share,” Biden said.
The President noted that the two countries have agreed to work together in combatting a new century of challenges with a revitalized Atlantic Charter, which includes addressing cybersecurity and climate change.
President Biden is delivering remarks now from St. Ives, Cornwall in England following his bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
He’s expected to announce the United States plans to donate 500 million Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses globally as part of his efforts to reassert US leadership on the world stage, officials said.
Administration officials suggested the move is part of a broader effort for the world’s democracies to lead the way in pandemic recovery.
Here are key things to know about the vaccine donation:
Biden’s move today will also serve to counter efforts by Russia and China to use their own state-funded vaccines to expand their influence across the world.
Hundreds of millions of doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, along with China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm shots, have been making their way around the world. Only the Sinopharm vaccine has been accepted into the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative.
Biden had previously committed to sharing 80 million Covid-19 vaccine doses with other countries. Last week, the Biden administration announced a plan to share the first 25 million Covid-19 vaccine doses with the rest of the world and an overall framework of distributing at least 80 million doses by the end of June.
A waterfront hotel near the G7 summit venue in Cornwall, England, has been forced to shut down after a number of staff tested positive for Covid-19, the company that owns the hotel told CNN in a statement on Thursday. The first day of the summit is set to start tomorrow.
A spokesperson for St Austell Brewery, which owns the Pedn Olva Hotel in St Ives, Cornwall, said: “We can confirm that a number of our team at the Pedn Olva, St Ives, have tested positive for Covid-19.”
“We immediately notified Public Health England of these cases and have been working closely with them to ensure we follow all appropriate safety guidelines. Following extensive discussions over the last few days with PHE and Cornwall Council, we have taken the decision to fully close the hotel,” the statement continued.
The company did not respond to questions regarding anyone associated with the G7 who could potentially be staying at the hotel, the number of people who have tested positive or what has happened to the guests. It said it would be providing no further comment.
The new Atlantic Charter that President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson were set to sign on Thursday during their bilateral meeting is meant to reflect the shifting threats facing the world 80 years after the original document was signed following World War II.
“It’s been 80 years since the last one, it’s about time that it gets refreshed,” a senior administration official said ahead of the signing. “The original really outlined what the post-war world order could and should look like, this new charter will make clear what the coming decades of the 21st century can and should look like,” the official said.
The new Atlantic Charter is aimed at building upon the historic declaration made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1941 that set out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II.
“Today, the President of the United States and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom reaffirm their commitment to work together to realise our vision for a more peaceful and prosperous future,” the document reads.
There are a few interesting points that reflect the document’s change to a modern pact between the US and UK, in particular its mention of disinformation campaigns and malign influence in elections.
There are also mentions of confronting injustice and inequality, cyber threats, the climate crisis and health threats.
Read the full document below:
President Biden plans to address the strained US-Russia diplomatic relationship when he meets President Vladimir Putin next week. There’s hope that the two leaders can agree to send their ambassadors back to Washington and Moscow after months with no senior diplomat being present in either country, according to three sources familiar with the plans.
Russia’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, was recalled from Washington about three months ago after Biden called Putin a killer. US Ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, left Moscow almost two months ago after Russia suggested he return to Washington for consultations.
Not having an ambassador in either country has made conducting basic diplomacy even more difficult at a time when relations are already severely strained.
The ambassadors’ departures signaled a new low point in an already tense relationship, and their return appears to be the only modest deliverable that the Biden administration is eyeing out of the high-stakes summit. The aspiration comes as the Biden administration has tempered expectations that the US and Russia would come away from the meeting with any groundbreaking agreements.
A State Department spokesperson said that Sullivan will “return to Moscow in the coming weeks,” and that the US remains committed to “open channels of communication with the Russian government, both to advance US interests and to reduce the risk of miscalculation between our countries.”
President Biden’s expected announcement Thursday evening that the United States plans to donate 500 million Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses globally will be a part of his efforts to reassert US leadership on the world stage, officials said.
Administration officials suggested the move is part of a broader effort for the world’s democracies to lead the way in pandemic recovery.
“We want to do everything we can to prevent more tragic loss across the globe,” the official said, adding that it is “in our national interest to end this pandemic everywhere.”
“Covid-19 knows no borders, and as long as this virus is in our world, Americans are at risk,” the official said, stressing how the virus also “threatens economic opportunity.”
The move will also serve to counter efforts by Russia and China to use their own state-funded vaccines to expand their influence across the world.
Hundreds of millions of doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, along with China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm shots, have been making their way around the world. Only the Sinopharm vaccine has been accepted into the World Health Organization’s COVAX initiative.
Many countries — including in Latin America, which has traditionally been an area of US influence — have been buying up large numbers of Russian and Chinese vaccines to fill gaps in their own vaccine rollouts.
The White House has said it has been monitoring and is concerned by efforts by Russia and China to use vaccines to make geopolitical gains.
The move is also intended to encourage other US allies to step up.
President Biden’s bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and members of the United Kingdom delegation is still underway in Carbis Bay, Cornwall in England.
Here’s a full list of participants from the White House:
US
UK
First lady Jill Biden says her husband has been preparing for weeks for his first foreign trip, including his high-stakes meeting next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“He’s so well prepared,” Dr. Biden told reporters in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, as her husband was sitting down to his first meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“He’s been studying for weeks working up for today,” she said. “He knows most of the leaders that will be here. Joe loves foreign policy. This is his forte.”
Asked specifically about whether he’d prepared to meet with Putin, she exclaimed: “He’s overprepared!”
She said the trip was off to a “beautiful beginning,” and said she and the President were looking forward to meeting Queen Elizabeth II on Sunday.
Asked to explain her jacket, which had the word “love” printed on the back, Dr. Biden said, “I think we’re bringing love from America.”
“We’re trying to bring unity across the globe,” she said, adding she hoped people “feel a sense of hope after this year of the pandemic.”
President Biden’s first in-person engagement with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is underway now in southwest England. They are expected to commit to working to open up travel between the US and the UK and lifting restrictions that were put in place to stop the spread of Covid-19, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The two leaders exchanged pleasantries, but otherwise did not speak substantively to reporters ahead of the talks.
Biden said he’d been to the United Kingdom many times, but it was his first stop as President. Biden, noting it was a pleasure to meet Johnson’s wife, quipped that both he and Johnson had “married up.”
Earlier, Biden greeted Johnson along a stretch of ocean to launch their first face-to-face meeting. The two men’s wives, Jill Biden and Carrie Johnson, also joined the greeting on a deck overlooking St. Ives Bay in Cornwall.
“It gorgeous. I don’t want to go home,” Biden said, according to pool reporters.
The foursome climbed a set of stairs to go inside, where the old Atlantic Charter had been put on display for the leaders to view.
The leaders are planning to sign an updated version of the document that better reflects the 21st-century world. The new Atlantic Charter will be modeled on the historic declaration made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1941 that set out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II, according to national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
As they viewed the charter, Biden and Johnson were both wearing masks. Outside, the leaders and their wives were maskless.
The new charter will outline priorities, values and challenges that include defending democracy, reaffirming the importance of collective security, building a more fair and sustainable global trading system, combating cyberattacks, addressing the climate crisis, protecting biodiversity and bringing an end to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Some more background: Personal dynamics between the leaders of the United States and Britain have often played a key role in the “special relationship” between the two trans-Atlantic powers. Roosevelt and Churchill were famously close, as were Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Bill Clinton, and then, to the surprise of many, Blair and US President George W. Bush during the Iraq War.
Johnson was a favorite of former US President Donald Trump, who praised him for his support for Brexit, Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. During the 2020 campaign, Biden referred to Johnson as a “physical and emotional clone” of Trump.
Biden still holds deep reservations about Britain’s exit from the European Union — a move Johnson championed and has advocated for as prime minister. Biden is expected to press Johnson on the issue during their talks, and specifically on how it might affect the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland.
Hear what the two leaders said during their meeting:
President Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will soon hold their first face-to-face bilateral meeting in Carbis Bay in Cornwall.
In style and in substance, the leaders are two very different men leading two countries whose relationship makes up one of the most important global alliances.
Biden rode into the White House last year on a record that spanned nearly 50 years in public service. And while the President ran as an antidote to then-President Donald Trump, Johnson has often been compared to the 45th President for his populist message and often brash comments.
The similarities between Trump and Johnson aren’t lost on Biden, who on the 2020 campaign trail once called Johnson a “physical and emotional clone” of Trump.
Given the tight ties between the US and UK, observers expect the public portions of the meeting to be cordial and warm. But both men enter this weekend’s diplomatic gathering under pressure to define their respective roles in the world and amongst other global powers.
Biden and Johnson’s relationship will no doubt be one to watch throughout Biden’s swing through Europe as he looks to reassure US allies that America will once again be conventional and reliable on the world stage.
The two diverge on policy on several fronts, including Biden’s opposition to Brexit and Northern Ireland’s role as part of Britain’s exit from the European Union. The Northern Ireland Protocol – the part of the Brexit deal that creates a de facto trade border in the Irish Sea – has contributed to rising tensions in the region this year. Biden has long been skeptical of Brexit, and holds deep affection for Ireland, his ancestral homeland. In his first speech in the United Kingdom on Wednesday, he quoted a line from Yeats.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday that Biden is expected to bring up Northern Ireland during his meeting with Johnson, but told reporters his comments would be reserved to making “statements of principle.”
Joe Biden’s first foreign trip as President comes at a unique moment.
No US President has ever left the nation’s shores with democratic values under attack as broadly and systemically at home as they are abroad. This extraordinary reality will complicate his mission to purge the trauma of the Donald Trump era and convince both foes and friends that the US is reclaiming its global leadership role for good.
Biden meets British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday before the G7 summit, makes a hop to NATO in Brussels, then has a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva that will evoke the most tense days of the Cold War.
“We’re going to make it clear that the United States is back and democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges,” Biden told US troops at an air base in eastern England on Wednesday.
For Biden, democracy is not just some abstract concept from civics class that Americans experience only when they enter the voting booth every few years.
It is a system, a way of life and a set of rules and norms that made the United States the strongest and richest country in history. The free, prosperous nations the US rebuilt and protected after World War II faced down communist tyranny in the form of the Soviet Union and underwrote 70 years of peace. This web of open, like-minded countries is also the key to America’s global power. If democracy ebbs abroad, so does US influence.
White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield said President Biden will be “direct” in his upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“He has every intention of having this meeting with President Putin, and what he would say is that he sits down with President Putin not in spite of our differences but because of our differences,” Bedingfield said on CNN’s “New Day,” after a Moscow court designated jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny’s political movement as an extremist network.
Bedingfield said Biden will raise concerns about human rights violations, the Ukrainian border and cyberattacks during the leaders’ meeting on June 16 in Geneva.
“What he’s looking to do is to create a stable, predictable relationship with Russia,” she added.
President Biden’s expected announcement Thursday evening that the United States plans to donate 500 million Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine doses globally will be a part of his efforts to reassert US leadership on the world stage, officials said.
Biden is set to deliver remarks at 1:15 pm ET from St. Ives, Cornwall, United Kingdom.
Officials touted the move Thursday, suggesting it is part of a broader effort for the world’s democracies to lead the way in pandemic recovery.
“We want to do everything we can to prevent more tragic loss across the globe,” the official said, adding that it is “in our national interest to end this pandemic everywhere.”
“Covid-19 knows no borders, and as long as this virus is in our world, Americans are at risk,” the official said, stressing how the virus also “threatens economic opportunity.”
But the move is also intended to encourage other US allies to step up.
“We’re also using this announcement today to leverage and mobilize larger commitments from the world’s democracies, from the G7 and partner countries,” a separate senior official said, previewing a “G7 Covid-related multilateral announcement.”
At the G7 summit this weekend, the official said, leaders will announce a “collective effort by the world’s democracies to beat Covid-19 for once and for all.”
The donation comes as Biden has repeatedly said that the world is at an inflection point for whether democracy can prevail over autocracy.
“This is the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do, and it is tangible proof that it is going to be the world’s democracies who ultimately deliver when it comes to beating the Covid-19 pandemic,” the official said.
Here are key things to know about the vaccine donation:
“The United States is not seeking favors in exchange for these doses, we’re not making demands in order for countries to get these doses, we are not imposing conditions, political, economic or otherwise. We are going to be guided by the science and public health experts in allocating them to the places where they can make the most difference,” the second senior official said.
President Biden isn’t planning to adopt a confrontational tone with Boris Johnson on the Northern Ireland issue during their meeting later Thursday, a senior administration official said.
But he will still raise the matter as a topic of deep personal interest that he wants to see resolved.
“The United States is not in those negotiations and not seeking to be in those negotiations,” the official said.
“It will not be confrontational or adversarial,” the official said of Biden’s plans to raise the matter in his talks with Johnson. “He didn’t come here to give a lecture. He came merely to communicate what he believes, very, very deeply about peace in Northern Ireland.”
The new Atlantic Charter that President Biden and Prime Minister Boris Johnson will sign on Thursday is meant to reflect the shifting threats facing the world 80 years after the original document was signed following World War II.
“The original really outlined what the post-war world order could and should look like, this new charter will make clear what the coming decades of the 21st century can and should look like,” the official said.
The new Atlantic Charter is meant to build upon the historic declaration made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1941 that set out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II.
Both leaders identify with their predecessors who signed the original document. Biden has consumed biographies of FDR as president and studied intently his “New Deal” efforts during the Great Depression.
Still, officials said the document was not designed to presage a new Cold War, as the original Atlantic Charter ended up doing.
“It is a profound statement of purpose of democracy, at a moment when, as the President has said, democracies are very much in competition with autocracy,” the official said. “There’s a renewal aspect to the commitment to these democratic principles in the face of genuine challenges and authoritarian competition, and the need to refresh and update the statement of principles so it actually reflects the world we’re dealing with today and not simply harkening back to the world of the Cold War.”
