US President Joe Biden announced, on Wednesday, from Britain, where he arrived at the beginning of his first foreign tour, that “the United States is back”, hoping to overcome the isolation and rancor that characterized the era of Donald Trump.
On his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden told the American soldiers at Mildenhall base, east of Britain, that he would tell his Russian counterpart “What I want him to know.”
In his first trip abroad since taking office, Biden is seeking to re-establish the US’s standing on the world stage, reassuring European allies whose relations were troubled with his predecessor, and promoting democracy as the only bulwark against rising authoritarian forces.
Shortly before his arrival at the Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall, where Biden met with American forces, informed sources confirmed that the Biden administration had brokered an agreement with the “Pfizer” company to purchase 500 million doses of Covid vaccines to donate to about 92 poor countries and the African Union during the next year.
Two hundred million doses, enough to fully protect 100 million people, will be shared this year, according to two sources familiar with the matter, and the doses will be donated in the first half of 2022.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters, Wednesday, on Air Force One, that Biden is committed to sharing vaccines “because it is in the public health and strategic interests of the United States.”
As he embarks on his first trip outside the United States, Biden seeks to show that “democracies are the countries that can find the best solutions for people everywhere,” according to Sullivan.
He added: “As (Biden) said in a speech: We were the arsenal of democracy in World War II. And we will be the arsenal of vaccines during the coming period to help end the pandemic.”
Before leaving Washington, Biden told reporters that his trip was to deliver a message to the leaders of China and Russia that the United States and Europe “are interconnected.”
(AFP, Associated Press)
