The itinerary included a NATO summit, a brief stop in the United Kingdom and a coda in the Finnish shoreline capital that included a news conference in the ornate Gothic Hall at the presidential place. The president was Donald Trump and the year was 2018. In July of that year, Trump had upended the annual gathering of the military alliance, criticized the British prime minister to the London tabloids and ultimately, in Helsinki, sided with Russian leader Vladimir Putin while casting doubt on his own intelligence community. President Joe Biden’s journey through Europe this week was nearly identical, but every point of his three-country tour was an unsaid yet indelible rebuke of his predecessor who tore through the continent a half-decade ago. It was a portrait of a leader whose ardent belief in international alliances will be part of his case for reelection, particularly if Biden faces a rematch against Trump and his opposing worldviews next year. During Biden’s concluding news conference in Helsinki, he took umbrage at a question about whether he could guarantee the United States would continue to be a reliable partner abroad, a query that conveyed allies’ concerns about Trump, whose foreign policy disdained the same alliances Biden cherishes. “Nobody can guarantee the future, but this is the best bet that anyone can make,” Biden said of the U.S. commitment to the 74-year-old military alliance. When a Finnish journalist noted that Biden said no one could make guarantees, he testily responded: “Let me be clear, I didn’t say … we couldn’t guarantee the future. You can’t tell me whether you’re going to be able to go home tonight. No one can be sure what they’re going to do.” Voice raised, he declared, “I’m saying, as sure as anything can possibly be said about American foreign policy, we will stay connected to NATO — connected to NATO, beginning, middle and end. We’re a transatlantic partnership. That’s what I’ve said.” His five-day trip to Europe — which wound through the United Kingdom, Lithuania and Finland — was meant to demonstrate the force of the international coalition against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And Biden appeared confident he had accomplished that mission, proclaiming that he and other NATO leaders showed the military alliance “more united than ever.” Trump, in contrast, has often been dismissive of NATO. And in his news conference in Helsinki five years ago, he took issue with his own intelligence agencies’ firm finding that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election to his benefit, seeming to accept Russian President Putin’s insistence that Moscow’s hands were clean. Though Ukraine’s demand for an explicit path to NATO membership remained elusive, Biden emphasized that agreements with countries in the alliance would support Kyiv’s long-term security even without its formal entry. During a meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö earlier Thursday, Biden insisted that Zelenskyy “ended up very happy” despite his expressed frustrations at the lack of a clear timetable for Ukraine to join the alliance. Biden and other administration officials also held what aides said were pivotal conversations with Turkey before that country this week dropped its objections to Sweden joining NATO. That paves the way for Sweden to become the 32nd member of the alliance, after Finland formally joined earlier this year. During his brief stop in London, Biden […]

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