Live Updates G-7 leaders wrap up summit; Biden says ‘America is back at the table’

Biden said Queen Elizabeth II asked him about world leaders, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, during their brief meeting at Windsor Castle on Sunday.

“She was very gracious,” Biden told reporters on the tarmac at London Heathrow Airport, before departing for Brussels. “She reminded me of my mother.”

Biden, who was greeted at Windsor Castle with a Guard of Honor upon his arrival, also commented on the size of the castle grounds.

“I said … we could fit the White House in the courtyard,” he said.

Biden and the first lady arrived Sunday afternoon at Windsor Castle, where they met with the queen.

Sporting aviator sunglasses, Biden stood alongside Elizabeth beneath a tent as they were greeted by the Guard of Honor. He later participated in an inspection of the guardsmen by himself, before the group entered Windsor Castle for afternoon tea, which was closed to the media.

As they strolled, Biden carefully avoided walking in front of the queen, a faux pas committed by his predecessor that generated a viral video and some mild alarm over the breach in royal protocol.

G-7 leaders vowed Sunday to move away from public financing of coal projects worldwide and to make good on their long-standing commitments to help vulnerable nations bear the rising costs of climate change.

But activists who had hoped for more concrete and ambitious pledges raised a key question: Where are the details?

“This summit feels like a broken record of the same old promises,” John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said in a statement. He praised the new commitment to ending overseas investment in coal but added, “without agreeing to end all new fossil fuel projects — something that must be delivered this year if we are to limit dangerous rises in global temperature — this plan falls very short.”

Biden said Sunday he would be willing to forge an agreement with Russia to exchange cyber criminals who mounted attacks on the respective nations, raising the prospect of an area of cooperation ahead of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva this week.

The comments follow calls in Congress for the Biden administration to hold Russia accountable for alleged ransomware attacks staged from Russian soil by cyber criminals that disrupted a major U.S. gasoline pipeline and a large meatpacking conglomerate in recent weeks.

Biden said he is satisfied with the way the G-7 leaders’ joint communique calls out China, and he urged China to be more transparent and “act more responsibly” on human rights.

“As you know, last time the G-7 met, there was no mention of China. But this time there is mention of China,” he said.

Biden said the G-7 leaders agreed to call out human rights abuses, to coordinate a strategy to “deal with China nonmarket policies that undermine competition,” and to take action against forced labor in numerous industries.

Biden vowed Sunday that the United States would continue to provide vaccines to the world’s poorest countries to curb the coronavirus pandemic, hinting that it may make another substantial donation of vaccine doses next year.

The president said he did not want to make commitments before they were finalized but added that the United States may “be in a position to provide another billion” doses over the next two years. Biden announced on Thursday that the United States had purchased 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine to donate to low- and middle-income countries.

Biden said Sunday that he agreed with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assessment that U.S.-Russia relations are “at a low point,” ahead of the two leaders’ meeting on Wednesday, but also defended his response to what he called Putin’s violations of international norms.

“I think he’s right it’s a low point, and it depends how he responds to acting consistent with international norms, which in many cases he has not,” Biden told reporters on the final day of the G-7 summit.

Biden said he felt he responded appropriately upon learning from U.S. intelligence that Putin had tried to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election, as well as in cybersecurity breaches.

G-7 leaders on Sunday announced commitments to removing forced labor from global supply chains, to fighting ransomware attacks and to taking collective action to combat corruption, the White House said.

Biden and other G-7 leaders “remain deeply concerned by the use of all forms of forced labor in global supply chains, including state-sponsored forced labor of vulnerable groups and minorities and supply chains of the agricultural, solar, and garment sectors — the main supply chains of concern in Xinjiang,” the White House said in a statement, calling out reported use of forced labor in China.