Candid clips from the G7 summit show the U.S. president looking bumbling and bewildered on the world stage.
Elbows-First Diplomacy.
The G7 leaders were seen on Friday greeting each other according to peculiar post-pandemic protocol: mask-free, but substituting awkward elbow taps for handshakes in an apparent effort to preserve the most cringeworthy of alternative social greetings.
President Joe Biden violated Royal protocol, however, by arriving after Queen Elizabeth II to a climate-themed reception hosted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the Eden Project, an educational charity in Cornwall.
It is improper to arrive after, or depart an event before, a member of the Royal Family—a rule which the Queen suspends on certain occasions, such as a wedding or the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, to give special honor. But on Friday, the American President’s eighteen-car convoy pulled in several minutes after the Her Majesty’s.
The 95-year-old monarch had a laugh at the far younger, gaffe-prone, sometimes sour-faced statesmen in attendance, quipping, “Are you supposed to be looking as if you’re enjoying yourself?” as the G7 leaders posed for the traditional “family photo.” In an unfavorable moment for the U.S. image at the summit, Biden was left trailing the group as the others angled for a moment with the Monarch. Another awkward on-camera moment showed First Lady Jill Biden playing caretaker as her husband spoke to reporters, frantically waving both hands and telling her husband to “come on” as onlookers laughed.
At the summit on Friday, Biden announced the launch of a global infrastructure initiative called “Build Back Better World” (B3W)—meant to be a challenge to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
“We will work with Congress to augment our development finance toolkit with the hope that, together with the private sector, other U.S. stakeholders, and G7 partners, B3W will collectively catalyze hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure investment for low- and middle-income countries in the coming years,” a White House fact sheet reads.
A senior administration official pitched the program as “an ambitious, new global infrastructure initiative with our G7 partners that won’t just be an alternative to BRI, but we believe will beat the BRI by offering a higher-quality choice.”
Biden Sends Back Border Wall Funds.
Biden on Friday officially returned the money to the Pentagon that had been dedicated to border wall construction under the last administration. The funds had been diverted from military counter narcotics and construction programs.
A statement from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) claimed that the wall had “shortchanged the military, and caused serious risks to life, safety, and the environment… No more money will be diverted for the purposes of building a border wall, and DOD has started cancelling all border barrier projects using the diverted funds. “
By way of example of environmental impacts, the fact sheet explains that “DHS has already started work to repair the Rio Grande Valley flood protection system that the prior Administration compromised, and to remediate dangerous soil erosion due to improper soil compaction along a 14-mile wall segment in San Diego, California.” The money will be returned to such projects as “enhancing readiness” and making improvements at on-base schools, hangars, housing, and operational and training facilities.
Biden-Harris White House Perpetuates Jan. 6 Lies.
An official press release from the Biden-Harris press office juxtaposed the the January 6 demonstration at the U.S. Capitol with the 1921 Tulsa massacre, linking both events to “efforts to undermine the right to vote.”
The statement on “fighting against attacks on Americans’ constitutional right to vote” reads, in part:
As the President said when recognizing the tragic injustice of the Tulsa race massacre, the “sacred right [to vote] is under assault with an incredible intensity,” in a manner that is “simply un-American” but sadly, not unprecedented. And he called for a redoubling of efforts to expand voting rights and overcome the surge in efforts to undermine the right to vote of so many Americans through anti-voter laws that are motivated by a dangerous lie—a lie that motivated the unprecedented assault on our Capitol on January 6th, that cost the lives of brave law enforcement officers, and that has been disproven by over 80 federal judges…
Brian Sicknick, the police officer whose death was thought to be linked to the January 6 riot, was declared in April to have died of natural causes on January 7. The only person shot and killed at the Capitol on January 6 was Ashli Babbitt. Three additional supporters of former president Donald Trump died of medical causes or injury.
