Disagreements flare among NATO allies despite relief at Biden's arrival
BRUSSELS— President Biden on Monday took his European tour to the headquarters of the organization his predecessor loved to hate, NATO, as leaders converged there to discuss how much to pivot the alliance to countering China and how to rebuild after the divisions of the Trump era.
For the alliance’s battered leaders, it was already victory enough that they were meeting with a U.S. president who, unlike former president Donald Trump, was not threatening to pull out of NATO on the spot. Yet deep divisions remained about how much to focus on Beijing as well as concerns that Biden’s unilateral approach to the Afghanistan pullout was similar to that of Trump.
Biden, meanwhile, after days of friendly meetings in Britain, was set to have the first tough meeting of his first international tour as president, sitting down with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Biden called Erdogan an “autocrat” during the presidential campaign, and Ankara has been disruptive at NATO and elsewhere. The meeting could serve as a preview of sorts for Biden’s meeting Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The notion of shifting NATO’s attention at least somewhat to China extends the theme of Biden’s European trip, after he also tried to sharpen China-related discussions at the Group of Seven summit in Britain. Biden has repeatedly cast the existential struggle of the current generation as one between democracies and autocracies such as China and Russia, and he reiterated that concern at a news conference Monday in Britain before departing for Brussels.
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