G7 virtual event: Biden comes together to meet on Friday with global leaders on Covid-19 effort

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This is his first meeting with leaders from the group of seven countries as president and represents a departure from the way in which former President Donald Trump handled the pandemic.

It will specifically focus on areas including “coordination of vaccine production, circulation, and supply, as well as ongoing efforts to raise the threat and emerging infectious diseases by building the nation’s capacity and managing health security finances, ”the White House said in its release Sunday afternoon.

When it comes to rebuilding an economy hit by the pandemic, Biden is ready to focus on “the importance of all industrialized countries in providing economic support. to overcome it, “the statement said.

The virtual meeting, hosted by the United Kingdom, will also involve the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the European Commission and the European Council.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement this weekend that he would use the significant event to call for global cooperation in the fight against the “common enemy” of coronavirus. Johnson charges the leaders “to work together on a unified global approach to pandemics that will end nationalist and skeptical politics that killed the first response to coronavirus,” the statement said.

“Quantum leaps in science have given us the vaccines we need to end this pandemic. Now the governments of the world have a responsibility to work together to make the vaccines work. I hope that 2021 will be remembered as the year that humanity worked together like never before to defeat a common enemy, “Johnson said.

Even as global Covid-19 issues have deteriorated in the last few weeks, the meeting will come to a head as new changes threaten to throw a string in government vaccination plans.

Biden’s oath to coordinate with other governments on the pandemic and global epidemic offers another break with Trump’s approach to foreign policy.

As the pandemic swept across the globe in May last year, Trump announced he was taking off the summit, “since I don’t feel like a G7 it seems to represent what going on in the world. “

“It’s a very old-fashioned group of countries,” he told reporters who were on board the Air Force at the time.

During his term, Trump publicly questioned and rejected the value of the U.S.’s longest alliances, including with NATO, Germany, South Korea and Japan. The former U.S. president also withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate treaty, the World Health Organization and several other United Nations agencies.

On his first day in office, Biden reversed several of Trump’s attempts to pull out of international agreements, beginning the process of reverting to the Paris climate agreement and halting removed from the World Health Organization.
In a statement by the Department of State earlier this month, Biden called for “back diplomacy at the center” of U.S. foreign policy and pledged to “rebuild” U.S. alliances around the world. world.

Biden placed particular emphasis on the need to rebuild America ‘s moral stance after four years of presidential overthrow of traditional and increasingly disgraceful alliances.

However, Biden’s foreign policy to-do list is long overdue. In the past four years, tensions with China and Iran have escalated, Russia has gone awry, North Korea has become a greater nuclear threat and relations with allies have been damaged.

This story was updated with additional information Sunday.

Schams Elwazer from CNN, Nicole Gaouette, Jennifer Hansler and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.

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