RIO DE JANEIRO — President Joe Biden is walking away from back-to-back summits facing the almost certain prospect that his policy agenda and efforts to promote international cooperation will collapse as soon as Donald Trump takes office in less than two months.
In meetings with foreign leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation in Peru and the G20 meeting here, Biden stuck to his script and avoided any public mention of Trump. But the reality of the situation was underscored by the fact that he left without holding the customary news conference or saying even more than a single, one-word answer to reporters’ questions.
In public remarks with other world leaders, he acknowledged it was “no secret” he was leaving office in January. But he never once publicly said his predecessor-turned-successor’s name out loud.
Reporters saw the 81-year-old president for a limited amount of time: at the start of the summits’ opening sessions and for brief remarks at leader-to-leader meetings. Biden — who for months dodged questions about his mental acuity until the disastrous June presidential debate that ended his campaign for a second term — initially appeared unlikely to attend the APEC leaders dinner, but ultimately ended up going.
The president muddled through meetings, at times making small talk and joking with officials in the room. Trump’s victory, which to many suggested was a rejection of Biden’s foreign policy and broader support for international alliances, turned what might have been the capstone to his decades-long career into a largely empty exercise.
Biden’s decision to largely avoid the press since the Nov. 5 election has exposed the challenge that the president and his top aides face in how to manage the damage — both at home and abroad — that Trump’s victory has done to his legacy and credibility, especially as members of his own party argue that Biden bears some responsibility for Trump’s return to power.
World leaders here have been careful about how they publicly talk about Trump, especially as he’s indicated that he will play hardball on the international stage in order to advance American interests and has a track record of making unpredictable foreign policy moves.
Biden was left out of a group photo of G20 world leaders on Monday, although a senior administration official said the photo was taken earlier than scheduled and the president missed it due to “logistical issues.” Although Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also missed the photo, Biden’s absence was a symbolic suggestion that the world has already moved on from his presidency.
France’s Emmanuel Macron didn’t mention Trump by name in a speech in Rio on Monday. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also did not mention the president-elect in his public-facing speeches. And British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was careful not to pillory an ally when asked about criticism of support for Ukraine by Donald Trump Jr., deflecting by speaking about the need to counter Russia.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who met face-to-face with Biden in Peru, had been advised to start playing golf for the first time in eight years to help develop a chemistry with Trump, the presidential office told local media last week.
Still, there have been some bright spots for the president during his trip. After Biden met one-on-one with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, on Saturday, the White House announced the two leaders reached an agreement to avoid giving artificial intelligence control of nuclear weapons systems, and they made progress toward the release of the two U.S. citizens behind bars in China that the State Department considers “wrongfully detained.”
On Sunday, Biden also became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Amazon rainforest, taking a helicopter tour near the city of Manaus and visiting a nature reserve, where he signed a proclamation designating Nov. 17 as International Conservation Day.
Over six days, Biden met behind closed doors on the sidelines of two global summits with at least six foreign leaders. His senior aides, meanwhile, tried to downplay the role that Trump played in the president’s conversations.
After Biden’s meeting with the Japanese prime minister and South Korean president, a senior administration official, granted anonymity to speak about the discussion, said the “president-elect’s name did not come up.” Even Trump’s relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, undoubtedly a source of concern for the South Koreans, was not discussed, according to the official. Asked by another official if Trump was discussed in the president’s meeting with the Peruvian leader, the official said: “Not explicitly, no.”
A third official, speaking to the traveling reporters huddled under tree cover in the Amazon rainforest on Sunday, was unwilling to acknowledge that Trump would likely roll back as much of Biden’s climate agenda as he could.
“Who knows? 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,” said the official, who hardly looked convinced by his own words.
The official was one of several the White House offered to speak with reporters throughout the president’s foreign trip, most of whom did so under the condition of anonymity and not on the record or on camera.
The White House defended Biden’s lack of press engagement. Senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement that Biden “engages with the press extensively — including through over 630 Q&As in office and over 50 interviews this year.” On the flight to Peru, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted that Trump did not host a post-election news conference after he lost in 2020. She also said Biden “regularly takes questions from all of you, and he is going to continue to engage with the press. … Stay tuned. He will continue to do that.”
But those suggestions that he would interact with the reporters while in South America did not come to fruition. After wrapping up his last meeting in Rio on Tuesday afternoon, Biden walked straight past the traveling press and up the stairs of Air Force One, taking off for Washington, D.C., without having meaningfully engaged with the press corps on the trip.
He ignored repeated invitations from the reporters traveling with him to talk about Trump’s election and to explain his message to world leaders on the incoming administration. Some reporters even resorted, without luck, to holding up handwritten signs to entice the president to come speak to them as he traveled to the Amazon rainforest on Sunday in between the two summits.
“Why are you hiding from the press, Sir?” an exasperated reporter shouted at Biden from a few yards away as he landed in Rio on Sunday evening.
