<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1656112952934,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000017c-2d9c-d084-a3ff-2ffce5bc0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1656112952934,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000017c-2d9c-d084-a3ff-2ffce5bc0000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_56112945", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1039977"} }); ","_id":"00000181-97dd-ddcb-a3e1-dfdf4cf70000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedPresident Joe Biden embarks for Europe this weekend for high-stakes meetings with G-7 and NATO allies and partners as Russia notches advances in Ukraine‘s east.
But the foreign policy summits are poised to be overshadowed by domestic politics, chief among them the Supreme Court‘s landmark decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, as well as 41-year high inflation.
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The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision was not a surprise, according to Democratic strategist Tom Cochran, an Obama administration State Department alumnus.
“There very well may be violent protests, but also, there’s a global inflation crisis, energy issues, and a war in Ukraine to simultaneously address,” he told the Washington Examiner. “As president, you can’t deal with just one. You have to deal with them all in addition to everything else.”
Columbia University professor, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow, former security official, and ex-diplomat Stephen Sestanovich agreed.
“As long as Biden looks as though he’s good at herding the cats of the Western alliance, and good at getting them to do things to help stabilize our economy, he’ll be OK,” he said.
Biden did not hesitate to underscore the electoral repercussions of the Supreme Court’s decision on November’s midterm cycle as his approval dips below 40%, according to RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight polling averages. Those numbers are mostly driven by dissatisfaction with the president’s economic management as consumer prices rose by 8.6% in the 12 months ending in May.
In response to the Supreme Court’s decision, Biden slammed the court for dismantling “a woman’s right to choose, her right to make intensely personal decisions with her doctor, free from interference of politics.” He emphasized how Roe had been decided almost half a century ago, with the opinion written by a justice appointed by Republican President Richard Nixon, repeating that “this fall, Roe is on the ballot.”
After imploring abortion advocates “to keep all protests peaceful,” Biden reiterated that “this decision must not be the final word” and that he will have “more to say in the weeks to come” before leaving the Cross Hall without taking questions. Earlier, a briefing scheduled with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was scrapped, prompting complaints from the White House Correspondents’ Association.
Jean-Pierre was asked the previous day how Biden and his aides were preparing “to shepherd his domestic agenda from 4,000 miles away.”
“Look, we believe that a president could do his job anyplace, anywhere, at any time, so that is not a concern for us,” she said. “For the president to be there and to continue to be a leader in bringing those countries together and talk about real issues that matter to all sides is also an important agenda for the president to continue to move forward.”
Biden departs for Schloss Elmau, Germany, on June 25 to attend the annual G-7 Leaders’ Summit. That meeting is expected to be dominated by Ukraine, including the food and energy shortages created by the Russian invasion and the coronavirus pandemic. He will then travel to Madrid on June 28 for the 2022 NATO Summit, where the alliance is anticipated to promote another strategic concept.
The last NATO strategic concept was published in 2010, and this iteration of the planning document may undermine the NATO Russia Founding Act of 1990, according to Max Bergmann, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’s Europe program director.
“Russia will be treated as an adversary. Essentially where NATO is going is sort of back to somewhat of a Cold War posture in terms of needing to reinforce front line states that border Russia just as NATO did during the Soviet period,” he said at a CSIS event.
Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership will be discussed amid Turkey’s opposition, as will the organization’s approach to China, Bergmann predicted.
For Bergmann’s colleague Matthew Goodman, CSIS’s economics senior vice president, the G-7 summit will challenge the group’s willingness to entertain “substantial new sanctions” given inflation as Italy calls for “an oil importers cartel.”
The idea of better balancing support for Ukraine and inflation was broached as well by Rose Gottemoeller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace nuclear policy program and Charles Kupchan, Georgetown professor and CFR senior fellow.
“It is important to figure out the messages to carry back to every public about inflation and this long haul and how there will have to be some belt tightening,” Gottemoeller said Friday at a CEIP engagement.
Kupchan recommended that the G-7 in particular speak to the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s “political and economic blowback” and endgame, admitting he was worried about “the America First Republican crowd” outperforming in the fall.
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“Biden’s chances in the November midterm don’t look good, right?” he said. “Most people think the House is going to flip and maybe the Senate too, so the G-7 would be a very good place to have a discussion about the effects of the war on the global economy and what can be done to deal with inflation.”
