Joe Biden – 2021 Statement on Visit to the UK
The statement issued by Joe Biden, the President of the United States, on 10 June 2021.
Today, President Biden visited the U.K. at the invitation of the Prime Minister and in advance of the G7 Summit. The President and the Prime Minister set out a global vision in a new Atlantic Charter to deepen cooperation in democracy and human rights, defence and security, science and innovation, and economic prosperity, with renewed joint efforts to tackle the challenges posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and emerging health threats.
DEMOCRACY, HUMAN RIGHTS, & MULTILATERALISM
Building on the U.K. G7 Presidency’s focus on open societies, and looking ahead to the U.S.-hosted Summit for Democracy, the U.S. and U.K. will continue to make practical efforts to support open societies and democracy across the globe. We will do this by defending media freedom, advancing a free and open internet, combatting corruption, tackling disinformation, protecting civic space, advancing women’s political empowerment, protecting freedom of religion or belief, and promoting human rights of all people. The United Nations remains the cornerstone of the international system, and its foundational principles reflect our shared values. In the 75 years since the UN’s creation, international security has been increasingly challenged by threats that do not recognise borders: climate change, pandemics, famine, migration, organised crime, and terrorism. The U.K. and U.S. will work with the UN and our international partners to continue to adapt and reform the international system to tackle these evolving threats and to build back better for the 21st century, while remaining true to the universal founding principles of the UN and the core values of its Charter. We commit to promoting peaceful and inclusive societies to reduce injustice, inequality, poverty, and hunger worldwide. We carry responsibility for creating sustainable and viable conditions to global economic challenges through our commitment to the G7 Agenda and 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, and we will work together to address pre-existing inequities and inequalities being exacerbated by COVID-19, ensuring they no longer go unaddressed. The U.S. and U.K. are committed to promoting the advancement of gender equity and equality as a key pillar of foreign policy and national security, including through educating girls, empowering women socially, economically, and politically, and ending violence against women and girls.
DEFENCE & SECURITY
We commit to enhance further the world’s strongest bilateral defence, security, and intelligence partnership to overcome the evolving threats of the twenty-first century. This includes threats and challenges associated with: cyberspace, foreign interference, harmful influence campaigns, illicit finance, violent conflict and extremism, and terrorism in all its forms. To this end, we will continue our partnership on those challenges, including working together closely on cyber security, countering illicit finance, and tackling all forms of terrorism by working together to address it online and enhance international collaboration on thwarting violent extremism that is racially, ethnically or ideologically motivated, including a range of hateful and white supremacist ideologies.
Through strong and principled leadership we will work to shape and secure the international order of the future with NATO as the bedrock of our collective defence. We will work together to further strengthen and modernise NATO, and increase its common funding, so the Alliance can harness the full range of military and non-military capabilities to contest existing and new threats, including malicious cyber activity and attacks that test the resiliency of our societies. We intend to take operational measures to modernise and integrate our armed forces, and strengthen bilateral cooperation on next generation capabilities. Last month, the U.K.’s new aircraft carrier, HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH, sailed on her first operational mission with U.S. and U.K. F-35 aircraft on board – a demonstration of the unique interoperability of our Armed Forces. As we maintain close alignment on our nuclear deterrence and modernisation programs, we reaffirm our commitment to effective arms control and nuclear security, and to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. We will draw on our extensive diplomatic, defence, security, civil and scientific cooperation to ensure Space is a safe and secure environment for all.
We look forward to bringing into force a robust bilateral data access agreement, to be based on a mutual recognition that both countries have an appropriately high level of data protection, that allows law enforcement investigations on both sides of the Atlantic to obtain the evidence needed to bring offenders to justice, whilst maintaining rigorous privacy standards. We will work together to maintain tightly-controlled lawful access to communications content that is vital to the investigation and prosecution of serious crimes including terrorism and child abuse. And we will work in partnership with technology companies to do this, protecting the safety of our citizens.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
We will develop a new landmark bilateral technology partnership in 2021/22. It will enable a new era of strategic cooperation to guarantee: the safety and security of our citizens; that we continue to lead the world in R&D; wealth creation and tackling inequality; the values of liberal democracies, open societies and open markets; and that all of these are codified in and threaded throughout the design and use of technology globally We will strengthen cooperation in areas such as: ensuring the diversity, resilience and security of our critical supply chains; enabling our industries and research institutions to develop and apply existing and emerging technologies such as AI, quantum, and battery technologies; and reducing barriers to the accessibility and flow of data to support economic growth, public safety and scientific & technological progress.
We will continue to strengthen collaboration in science and technology. This will facilitate increased joint world-class research, as well as encourage the development of rules, norms and standards governing data sharing, technology, and the digital economy that reflect our values and principles. We will cooperate on the basis of openness, transparency, and reciprocity, and in hope of ensuring that our collaborative research benefits our people. We will combine our expertise to tackle global challenges, such as cancer, antimicrobial resistance, climate change, and pandemic preparedness. We will do this through closer coordination between the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and through closer collaboration between U.S. and U.K. senior science and technology advisers.
TRADE & PROSPERITY
We commit to deepening and strengthening our vital economic and trading partnership. We commit to the rapid settlement of the Large Civil Aircraft dispute. Both countries recognise that trade, when done right, can support our mutual interest in sustainable and green growth, good jobs for our workers, new opportunities for our innovators and businesses, and high labour and environmental standards. We will therefore work closely to identify and pursue opportunities to deepen our already extensive trade relationship.
We reaffirm our commitment to spur economic regeneration and build back better in a way that benefits all communities that have experienced the pain of economic change and advances equality for all – not just in cities, but also small towns and post-industrial areas. Mindful of the distributional consequences of economic policy and that current economic models do not serve all equally in society or adequately tackle issues such as the climate crisis, and recognising the need for equality of opportunity, we intend to launch a new joint initiative that brings together experts, practitioners and officials to advance a new “common sense” about how the economy works and the goals it should promote; the initiative will share best practice and review the evidence around public policies to tackle structural inequalities across the economy and deliver prosperity across society.
We are proud to welcome G7 leaders’ discussions around a values-driven, high-standard and transparent, infrastructure partnership that seeks to collectively mobilise private-sector capital through catalytic investments in low- and middle-income countries from our development finance tools. We look forward to discussing the outline of this new partnership with our G7 partners in Carbis Bay.
We also welcome the efforts underway through the G20/OECD Inclusive Framework to address the tax challenges arising from globalisation and the digitalisation of the economy and to adopt a global minimum tax. We commit to reaching an equitable solution on the allocation of taxing rights, with market countries awarded taxing rights on at least 20% of profit exceeding a 10% margin for the largest and most profitable multinational enterprises. We will provide for appropriate coordination between the application of the new international tax rules and the removal of all Digital Services Taxes, and other relevant similar measures, on all companies. We also commit to a global minimum tax of at least 15% on a country by country basis. We agree on the importance of progressing agreement in parallel on both Pillars and look forward to reaching an agreement at the July meeting of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors.
CLIMATE & NATURE
Together we will work to: rally all countries to strengthen their climate ambitions; achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement; keep within reach the goal of limiting global average temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels; and bend the curve of biodiversity loss by 2030. We will champion the best available science – particularly reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services – and welcome global partnerships, including the COP26 Policy Dialogue on a Transition to Sustainable Agriculture and the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate to increase and accelerate research and development for innovation in agricultural food systems; and support a resilient transition to decarbonised economies with quality job opportunities; and make progress on climate action in a gender responsive manner. We underscore our commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest, and call on all other countries to do likewise. We welcome the G7’s creation of an Industrial Decarbonisation Agenda (IDA), which will help drive innovation in, and lower costs of, the decarbonisation of heavy industrial sectors around the world.
We are committed to achieving an ambitious outcome at COP26 and to the collective developed country goal of mobilising $100 billion annually through to 2025 from a wide variety of public and private sources in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation. We are both increasing our climate finance from 2020, including for adaptation, and are continuing to pursue additional opportunities to increase climate finance mobilisation. We intend to provide support to countries to enable adaptation, and address the effects of climate impacts, including through finance for nature-based solutions, and by scaling up disaster risk-management, including through the Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership. We are committed to mainstreaming nature across all sectors and into economic decision-making. We also commit to working even more closely together on forests, including through the Forest Agriculture, and Commodity Trade (FACT) Dialogue, the ocean, and finance for nature to conserve, protect and restore natural ecosystems including by championing an ambitious post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
Recognising the impact that energy has on our national security, economy, net-zero ambitions, and shared prosperity, we are launching a new ‘Strategic Energy Dialogue’, led by the U.K. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the U.S. Department of Energy. This dialogue aims to deepen our cooperation in areas such as the development and deployment of innovative, clean energy technologies, industrial decarbonisation, nuclear energy, energy security and resilience, joint priorities in multilateral energy forums, and shared science, research, and innovation cooperation.
HEALTH
We are determined to work together to overcome the current pandemic, which has reversed progress on improving the human condition, and to be better prepared in the future. Reflecting our shared strength in science and technology, we commit to enhancing our cooperation on tackling variants of concern and emerging infectious disease threats with pandemic or epidemic potential. This will be underpinned by collaboration between the new U.K. Health Security Agency (U.K.HSA) Centre for Pandemic Preparedness and the new U.S. National Center for Epidemic Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics. Our collective strength in science will allow us to: scale up surveillance and genomic sequencing capacity, as well as variant assessment capabilities; adopt a One Health approach to account for animal health, and zoonotic and environmental risk; and support others without these capabilities. We welcome the plan to establish an integrated global surveillance system – the Global Pandemic Radar – and commit to working with the WHO and other partners to take this forward. Enhancing global surveillance is critical to achieving our collective ambition to deliver safe, effective and affordable vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics within 100 days of a future pandemic threat being identified. We are committed to working together with fellow G7 chief scientists to drive progress toward the bold 100 day ambition and report back to G7 leaders on next steps later this year. We will strengthen collaboration on G7 action on clinical trials for vaccines and therapeutics, through more coordinated research agendas and better sharing of data and results.
We look forward to normalising two-way travel between our two countries. We will establish a joint U.K.-U.S. Experts’ Working Group, which will share expertise and provide recommendations to leaders on the return of safe and sustainable international travel, demonstrating the commitment of both countries to tackle COVID-19 together.
We will work together to help increase global vaccine supply through investments in manufacturing of safe and effective vaccines and the materials needed to produce them. We will promote the timely availability of vaccines, key components and equipment by encouraging bilateral trade and investment and avoiding export restrictions or other supply chain disruption. We will work together to strengthen multilateral vaccine initiatives, in particular COVAX and its partner organisations CEPI, Gavi, UNICEF and WHO. We will support resource mobilisation for partner financing needs, and work with international financial institutions to build delivery capacity in-country and develop long term, sustainable financing models to increase pandemic preparedness and response and global health security. To this end, the U.K. and U.S. will work together with likeminded countries to explore options for a new sustainable, catalytic health security financing mechanism. We will bring together government and industry to encourage further investment to tackle COVID-19 and prepare for the next health security threat, including by strengthening preparedness and resilience, increasing R&D spending, and tackling new variants. We will continue to help allies and partners accelerate implementation of, and compliance with, the International Health Regulations (IHR). To move towards this goal, we will both strive to promote and advance the Global Health Security Agenda and its bold 2024 target, including through capacity building to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats.
The U.K. and U.S. recognise the central importance of the WHO in global health security. The U.K. and the U.S. will work together and with like-minded Member States to implement the WHO strengthening resolution adopted at the World Health Assembly in May 2021. We will also support a timely, transparent and evidence-based independent process for the next phase of the WHO-convened COVID-19 origins study, including in China, and for investigating outbreaks of unknown origin in the future. We will take account of the recommendations of the International Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response as we work together to learn the lessons from the pandemic and strengthen future preparedness. We commit to advancing critical areas in global health, including strengthening health systems and building regional and country capacity to better withstand future shocks; expanding the availability, accessibility, and quality of essential health services among the world’s most vulnerable, marginalized, and inadequately-served; and prioritizing maternal, neonatal and child health, nutrition, malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. We will also establish an institution-to-institution partnership to strengthen our approach to reducing health inequalities. We will elevate our partnership on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights advancing our renewed commitment throughout the 76th United Nations General Assembly. . We call on regional, local and national actors to support these efforts.
We will convene the first U.S.-U.K. Bilateral Cancer Summit and bring together researchers, patients, and other stakeholders to share ideas and identify opportunities for collaboration to accelerate advances in lifesaving approaches to cancer, which remains a leading cause of death worldwide.
COMMITMENT TO NORTHERN IRELAND
Northern Ireland has taken huge strides forward since its courageous leaders put reconciliation and progress before violence and division 23 years ago. We are proud of the achievements of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, and we remain fully committed to its three strand approach, that: established the democratic institutions in Northern Ireland; provided for consultation, co-operation and action across the island of Ireland; and created structures for British-Irish engagement. It took a deep partnership between the U.K., Ireland, and the U.S. to support the people of Northern Ireland in bringing the Troubles to an end, and it will take a continued and ongoing partnership to advance and safeguard Northern Ireland’s stability and prosperity into the future.
Today, the U.K. and U.S. reaffirm their commitment to working closely with all parties to the Agreement to protect its delicate balance and realise its vision for reconciliation, consent, equality, respect for rights, and parity of esteem. Unlocking Northern Ireland’s tremendous potential is a vital part of safeguarding the stability created by the Agreement, and the U.K. and the U.S. will continue working together towards that shared goal.
