'Unpredictable world': What to expect from Biden's first foreign trip as president

Joe Biden embarked Wednesday on his first foreign trip as president, an eight-day swing across Europe that will give him a chance to shore up frayed alliances with U.S. allies and meet face to face with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid rising tensions with Moscow.

He’ll also get to enjoy one of the perks of the presidency: a visit with Queen Elizabeth II.

Biden, who has been on the world stage for nearly five decades as senator, vice president and now president, has hosted the leaders of Japan and South Korea at the White House since taking office Jan. 20 but held off on traveling abroad because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

The pandemic is still entrenched in much of the world, but Biden will arrive in the United Kingdom as the European Union reopens its borders to vaccinated tourists, including Americans.

The focal point of Biden’s visit will be the Group of Seven summit, or G-7, which opens Friday in Carbis Bay, a seaside resort in Cornwall in southwest England. The summit is the first gathering of leaders of the world’s largest economies in nearly two years and the first of the post-Donald Trump era. Trump feuded with several of the group’s leaders during his presidency, and Biden sees the summit as a chance to heal those scars.

“In this moment of global uncertainty, as the world still grapples with a once-in-a-century pandemic, this trip is about realizing America’s renewed commitment to our allies and partners, and demonstrating the capacity of democracies to both meet the challenges and deter the threats of this new age,” Biden wrote last week in an op-ed published in The Washington Post.