US President Joe Biden has welcomed Nato leaders to Washington DC with a forceful speech that seemed pitched to reassure allies overseas and closer to home that he can fight off a looming election challenge from Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
In brief but strongly delivered remarks at the opening of the summit, the president declared the military alliance \u201cmore powerful than ever\u201d as it faces its greatest challenge in a generation with the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
He called it a \u201cpivotal moment\u201d for Europe and the world.<\/p>\n
Warning that \u201cautocrats have overturned global order\u201d, Mr Biden announced more military aid for Ukraine\u2019s beleaguered air defences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country,\u201d Mr Biden said in remarks read from a teleprompter on Tuesday afternoon. \u201cRussia will not prevail. Ukraine will prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US president and the leaders of Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania are donating Patriot missile batteries and other air defence systems to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Mr Biden spoke for about 13 minutes in a clear voice, a marked difference from his fumbling tone during last month\u2019s presidential debate with Trump.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, congressional Democrats met privately to debate Mr Biden\u2019s leadership of the party and the mood was \u201csad\u201d, lawmakers told the Associated Press news agency.<\/p>\n
Later on Tuesday, a seventh House of Representatives Democrat \u2013 Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey \u2013 publicly called on Biden not to run for re-election, saying \u201cthe stakes are too high\u201d with Trump campaigning for a return to the White House this November.<\/p>\n
Visiting diplomats also expressed scepticism about Mr Biden\u2019s future, according to reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t see how he can come back after the debate,\u201d one unnamed European envoy told Reuters news agency. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine him being at helm of the US and Nato for four more years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Biden\u2019s team has responded by trying to show that the 81-year-old remains vigorous enough to handle the demands of the presidency.<\/p>\n
The White House has credited Mr Biden\u2019s leadership for the expansion of Nato since Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, with Finland and Sweden joining the alliance.<\/p>\n\n
Leaders from the 32 member countries are converging on the US capital for the summit.<\/p>\n
Joining them is the UK\u2019s new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer. Before leaving for Washington, he said he was pleased to \u201cconfirm and reaffirm Labour\u2019s strong support, unshakeable support for Nato\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Nato trip is \u201call about standing together with our allies, discussing practically how we provide further support to Ukraine, and send a very, very clear message to Putin that we will stand against Russian aggression wherever it is in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Starmer is due to meet Mr Biden on Wednesday, as well as Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress.<\/p>\n
The event was steeped in the alliance\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
It was held in the very venue where the original treaty was signed decades ago, which Mr Biden invoked in his speech.<\/p>\n
Near the conclusion of his speech, Mr Biden called Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on to the stage, to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America\u2019s highest civilian honour.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday evening, Trump criticised Nato allies during a campaign rally at his golf club in Doral, Florida.<\/p>\n
The event was attended by all three of his sons, including his youngest, Barron, who was attending his first ever Trump rally, according to his father, and received more applause from the audience than his brothers Eric and Don.<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly lambasted Nato member states for failing to meet an agreed goal of spending at least 2% of gross domestic product on defence. Many more Nato countries now meet that benchmark since Russia invaded Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Trump told supporters that these countries were contributing \u201chundreds of billions of dollars\u201d more because when he was president he had warned them \u201cNo, I will not protect you from Russia\u201d unless they paid more to the alliance.<\/p>\n
The post Biden forcefully defends Nato as he hosts summit leaders<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US President Joe Biden has welcomed Nato leaders to Washington DC with a forceful speech that seemed pitched to reassure allies overseas and closer to home that he can fight off a looming election challenge from Donald Trump. In brief but strongly delivered remarks at the opening of the summit, the president declared the military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}