The Group of Twenty and Biden tried the Europeans in Rome. Praise be to Draghi, apologies to Macron- Corriere.it

“Thank you. It’s good to be back here,” President Joe Biden said. in the Vatican Yesterday morning, between handshakes and smiles, before a long and intimate meeting with Pope Francis. “Thank you,” he repeated in bilateral relations with President Sergio Mattarella and With Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

A warmer, less serious version of “America is Back,” which he declared last June as a turning point in the Trump era.

In the four months since his first foreign trip as president, European allies have seen Biden’s popularity plummet at home, divisions in his party have shaken up the agenda on public spending and the climate, and a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan has put his international vision in question. So at press conferences in August Biden refused even to acknowledge criticism from EuropeansOn this day of bilateral meetings that saw a giant presidential motorcade of 85 vehicles through the streets of the capital on the eve of the G-20 summit, it was a diplomatic effort to show that America needed Europe’s friendship and focused on the transatlantic connection.

“You are doing an extraordinary job. We need to show that democracies can work and that we can produce a new economic model. Biden told Draghi, in a meeting that cemented the Italian prime minister as Washington’s main interlocutor in Europe. Biden also thanked Mattarella To lead the G20 on climate, fight Covid and recover” in a 45-minute interview. Then President Emmanuel Macron saw in Villa Bonaparte, the Paris embassy to the Holy See, technically on French soil, raising the meeting from a simple bilateral meeting.

“There is no ally older and more loyal to France than France.” Biden said, acknowledging that the United States was “clumsy” in the submarine deal, ie Aukus Agreement, signed in September with Great Britain and Australia for supplying the latter with nuclear technology, which blew up a lucrative deal between Paris and Canberra. “I had the impression that France had reported before, I swear to God.” The admission of a mistake by a president with decades of foreign policy experience closes the incident with France, which came to compare Biden to Trump and summon the ambassador. “We made it clear,” Macron concluded. Then: “Trust is like love: Affirmations are good, facts are better.” On the other hand, London and Paris have yet to “settle” the dispute, which has intensified due to the dispute over fishing rights in the canal.

This is how the Group of Twenty leaders began. Here’s what Biden adviser Jake Sullivan said The absence of Xi and Putin is not an obstacle But it is an opportunity to demonstrate that Western democracies know how to work together to solve global challenges. But Biden does not lose sight of the challenges at home: Even from Rome, his spokesperson explains, he will be on the phone to resolve a congressional tug of war.