Joe Biden attending the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Associated Press)
Key highlights
- The NATO summit opened in Washington DC on Tuesday (July 9).
- President Joe Biden will likely make the most of the summit to bolster his position as a presidential candidate.
- The Biden administration’s work with NATO has been a key issue in the 81-year-old Biden’s campaign.
From July 9 to 11, 32 member states and their partners, as well as the entire European Union, will gather in Washington to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the alliance. Biden and Trump are the leading candidates in the 2024 US elections, and the different positions of the two leaders are NATO This has become an important argument in election campaigns, especially for the Democratic Party.
In contrast to Trump’s skepticism about NATO, Biden’s campaign has so far emphasized the actions he has taken to support NATO allies and partners when they face threats. NATO’s role in the Ukraine-Russia conflict is a key issue Biden has emphasized throughout his campaign.
The Biden campaign is in full swing of a blitzkrieg following the president’s disastrous performance in the first debate on CNN. The NATO summit will be a key event for the incumbent president, as he seeks not only to reassure NATO allies but also to demonstrate to the American public that he is a competent leader, an issue that has come under increasing scrutiny in recent times.
Trump has signaled he will not support NATO allies that fail to meet their 2% of GDP spending target, making it crucial for many NATO members and allies that Biden stay in the White House.
“Our allies are looking to the United States for leadership,” Biden said in an MSNBC interview on Monday. “Who else do you think can step in and do this? I’ve expanded NATO, I’ve made NATO stronger. I’ve made sure that we’re in a position where we have a coalition of countries around the world to deal with China, Russia, all the issues that are going on in the world. We’re really making progress.”
One of the main topics at the past few NATO summits has been Ukraine’s application for NATO membership. When President Biden attended the G7 summit in June 2024, he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy there to discuss the ongoing conflict and Ukraine’s possible application for membership. With President Biden’s approval rating dropping since the June 27 debate, President Zelenskyy said in an interview with Bloomberg that Trump should reveal his “secret plan” to immediately end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
