WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden begins his six-day go to to Peru and Brazil on Thursday for the final main worldwide summits of his presidency, as world leaders take note of what Donald Trump's return to the the White Home for his or her international locations.
The go to to the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation summit in Peru and stops within the Amazon rainforest and the Group of 20 leaders' summit in Brazil provide Biden one among his final probabilities as president to satisfy with heads of state who he has labored through the years.
WATCH: What Biden and Trump talked about during their meeting at the White House
However the eyes of world leaders are firmly on Trump.
They’re already burning up Trump's telephone with congratulatory calls and taking inventory of his picks for key nationwide safety and overseas coverage positions.
At the least one chief, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, is dusting off the golf golf equipment he hasn't utilized in eight years, simply in case he will get the prospect to hook up with Trump who love golf
“This isn’t going to be a swan music for Biden,” stated Erin Murphy, an analyst on the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research in Washington. “Not solely is he a lame duck, he's a brilliant lame duck as a result of his successor may have very completely different insurance policies.”
White Home officers insist Biden's visits to APEC and the G20 shall be substantial, with talks on local weather points, world infrastructure, counter-narcotics efforts and one-on-one conferences with world leaders, together with Chinese language President Xi Jinping, and a gathering of shared with the South. Yoon of Korea and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
“He's going to have the identical message that he's had for 4 years as president, which is that he believes America's allies are very important to America's nationwide safety,” White Home nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan instructed reporters. after Biden hosted Trump for talks within the Oval Workplace. Wednesday. “They make us stronger. They multiply our talents. “They take a burden off our shoulders.”
That wide-ranging dialogue between the Democratic president and the Republican president-elect touched on the conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine.
“I wished — I requested — for his views and he gave them to me,” Trump instructed the New York Put up after his dialog with Biden.
Sullivan indicated that White Home officers are additionally making it clear to Trump's workforce that the fragile US-China relationship is a “high precedence for the incoming administration.”
Trump has introduced that he’ll nominate the Florida senator. Marco Rubio for secretary of state and that Florida consultant Mike Waltz shall be his nationwide safety adviser. Each Republicans famous the China hawks.
The White Home had been working for months to rearrange the assembly with Xi, whose nation is the US' most outstanding financial and nationwide safety competitor.
For Xi, high of thoughts shall be Trump's marketing campaign promise to impose 60% tariffs on Chinese language imports. White Home officers prevented commenting on particulars about how Biden will strategy talks with Xi and different world leaders about Trump.
These officers say Biden will use the summits to induce allies to proceed assist for Ukraine because it tries to keep away from a Russian invasion and never lose concentrate on ending the wars in Lebanon and Gaza. This contains bringing house hostages held by Hamas for greater than 13 months.
Between summits, Biden will go to the Amazon rainforest, the primary such go to by a sitting US president.
James Bosworth, founding father of the Latin American-focused political consultancy Hxagon, stated Biden will use one among his final main moments within the worldwide highlight “to reassure the world that the transition of energy is regular for democracies.”
“Biden will obtain applause and public reward, at the same time as world leaders nervously await the transition,” Bosworth stated.
Biden's assembly with Xi is more likely to be crucial second through the US president's time in South America.
This shall be their first dialog since a telephone name in April. They final met face-to-face at a California property on the outskirts of final yr's APEC summit.
Biden has tried to keep up a secure relationship with Xi, even because the US administration has repeatedly raised issues about what it sees as malign actions by Beijing.
WATCH: Trump returns to Washington as Senate Republicans pick new leader
US intelligence officers have estimated that China has bought Russia machine instruments, microelectronics and different expertise that Moscow is utilizing to supply missiles, tanks, plane and different weapons to be used towards Ukraine. The Biden administration final month imposed sanctions on two Chinese language firms accused of immediately serving to Russia construct long-range assault drones.
Tensions flared final yr after Biden ordered the downing of a Chinese language spy balloon that crossed the intercontinental United States. And the Biden administration has criticized Chinese language army assertiveness towards Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Sullivan stated he anticipated Biden to additionally launch a US investigation into an alleged Chinese language hacking operation focusing on cellphones utilized by Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and folks related to Democrat Kamala Harris' presidential marketing campaign.
On the marketing campaign path, Trump talked about his private relationship with Xi, which acquired off to a very good begin through the Republican's first time period earlier than straining over disagreements over commerce and the origins of COVID-19.
In a congratulatory message to Trump, Xi referred to as for the US and China to handle their variations and get alongside in a brand new period, in response to Chinese language state media.
Biden finds himself in a considerably comparable place to when then-President Barack Obama traveled to Peru in 2016 for the annual APEC leaders assembly shortly after Trump's first White Home victory.
World leaders peppered Obama with questions on what Trump's shock victory meant. Obama urged leaders to be affected person and see how issues play out below Trump, who has steered on a protectionist, “America First” agenda.
“Obama had plenty of questions on Trump, and his message was to attend and see … as a result of we didn't know Donald Trump,” stated Victor Cha, a Nationwide Safety Council official within the George W. Bush administration. “Now we're in a really completely different scenario the place we all know what the primary Trump administration was like.”
Related Press author Isabel DeBre in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.