Biden meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican ahead of G20 summit

Joe Biden has arrived at the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Francis ahead of the G20 leaders’ summit which is due to get underway in Rome tomorrow. 

The President, a devout Roman Catholic, was pictured at in the San Damaso courtyard of the Apostolic Palace and shaking hands with the ‘Pope’s gentlemen’ before being led to the papal library where the talks will be held, with climate change and social injustice at the top of the agenda.

It is unclear whether abortion rights – which have been championed by Biden in the US and has seen senior bishops call for him to be refused Communion – will feature as part of their talks.

Parts of the meeting were due to be broadcast on live TV but this was abruptly cancelled overnight, with the Vatican saying it will released edited footage after the talks have taken place. 

This is Biden’s fourth meeting with Pope Francis, but the first since he was elected President. 

Biden has fled tanking approval ratings at home and partisan in-fighting over his $1.75trillon spending bill to travel to Rome, where he is set to meet with leaders from the G20 group of wealthy nations for a two-day summit.

It is the first face-to-face summit of the G20 since Covid struck, and Biden will be hoping to use it to repair his international reputation following his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that frustrated his allies and drew unfavourable comparisons with predecessor Donald Trump.

It also comes just two days ahead of the start of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow that will be hosted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. 

The agenda for the G20 is set to include Covid vaccines and global access to healthcare, the economic recovery from the pandemic and wealth inequalities, climate change, and trade. It comes ahead of another major conference – the COP26 climate summit – which kicks off in Glasgow on Monday. 

Ahead of his meeting with Biden, Francis issued a statement which calls on world leaders to take ‘radical decisions’ to protect the environment and prioritize the common good.

In a special Thought for the Day message for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the Pope said: ‘We have lost our sense of security and are experiencing a sense of powerlessness and loss of control over our lives.’

He said the crises being faced ‘forecast a perfect storm’ but also provide opportunities.

Francis added: ‘These crises present us with the need to take decisions, radical decisions that are not always easy.

‘At the same time, moments of difficulty like these also present opportunities. Opportunities that we must not waste.’

The Pope warned against countries taking an isolationist approach, and called for a ‘renewed sense of shared responsibility for our world’.

‘We can confront these crises by retreating into isolationism, protectionism and exploitation, or we can see in them a real chance for change, a genuine moment of conversion and not simply in a spiritual sense,’ he said.

After meeting with the Pope, Biden will meet his Italian counterparts including President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Mario Draghi. 

Biden will also convene with French President Emanuel Macron on Friday, their first face-to-face meeting since the AUKUS submarine deal between the US, UK and Australia that roiled the French. 

Over the weekend, Biden will attend G20 events to discuss the international economy and international issues. He will likely hold meetings with other world leaders to discuss supply chain issues, energy prices and the Iranian nuclear program, according to national security adviser Jake Sullivan. 

They are also likely to discuss implementation of the global minimum tax, which G7 finance ministers worked out back in June. Earlier this month, 136 countries agreed to set up a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15%, to be imposed by 2023.  

Joe and Jill Biden were pictured meeting with the ‘Pope’s gentlemen’ at the Apostolic Palace before being led to the papal library where his talks with Francis will take place

Biden has been facing criticism in the US over his support for abortion rights which has seen bishops call for him to be refused Communion. It is not known whether the issue will form part of his talks with Francis

Swiss guards march in formation ahead of the arrival of Joe Biden at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City, where he will meet with Pope Francis today

The motorcade of US President Joe Biden drives across the Via della Conciliazione in Rome leading to the Vatican

The president will then head to Glasgow, Scotland for the COP26, a United Nations climate summit, where he’ll likely face questions about his Build Back Better plan and its climate provisions. The framework of the $1.75T social and climate bill now includes $500 billion in climate provisions. 

The president had said he hoped to have a deal in hand before he showed up to the UN climate conference, but White House officials played down the need to have an actual vote by that time, arguing that world leaders would understand the legislation was in its home stretch. 

Rome marks the first in-person meeting of the full G20 since the Covid pandemic began, and provides an opportunity to confront issues such as the global energy crunch, clogged supply chains, new outbreaks of Covid and vaccines, and action to tackle climate change. 

The summit will allow leaders representing 80 per cent of the global economy to talk – and apply peer pressure – on all those issues though analysts question how much progress they can make to ease the burden right away on people facing rising prices on everything from food and furniture to higher heating bills heading into winter.

Health and financial officials are sitting down in Rome on Friday before presidents and prime ministers gather for the G-20 Saturday and Sunday, but the leaders of major economic players China and Russia won’t be there in person. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will instead join via video-link.

That may not bode well for cooperation, especially on energy issues as climate change takes center stage just before the U.N. Climate Change Conference begins Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland. 

The International Monetary Fund says the top priority for the economic recovery is simple: speed up the vaccination of the world population. Yet big headlines on vaccine cooperation may not be forthcoming at the Rome summit.

The G-20 countries have supported vaccine-sharing through the U.N.-backed COVAX program, which has failed to alleviate dire shortages in poor countries. Donated doses are coming in at a fraction of what is needed, and developed countries are focused on booster shots for their own populations.

Negotiations before the summit have not focused on a large number of vaccines that could be made available, though countries talked about strengthening health systems.

Meanwhile, rising consumer prices and government stimulus programs to help economies bounce back from the pandemic may be discussed, but central banks tend to deal with higher prices and stimulus spending is decided at the national level. 

One major economic deal is already done: The G-20 will likely be a celebration of an agreement on a global minimum corporate tax, aimed at preventing multinational companies from stashing profits in countries where they pay little or no taxes.

All G-20 governments signed on to the deal negotiated among more than 130 countries, and it now faces an ambitious timeline to get approved and enacted through 2023.

U.S. President Joe Biden has tied his domestic agenda to it – creating a global minimum tax can allow the United States to charge higher taxes without the risk of companies shifting their profits to tax havens. U.S. adoption is key because so many multinational companies are headquartered there.

The agreement also helps remove trade tensions between the U.S. and Europe. It allows nations including France, Italy and Spain to back off digital services taxes that targeted U.S. tech companies Google, Facebook and Amazon. 

Pope Francis will speak with Joe Biden at a closed-door meeting in the Vatican on Friday, ahead of the G20 leader’s summit which is due to start on Saturday

Joe Biden is seen arriving at Rome-Fiumicino International Airport alongside wife Jill early Friday, having delayed his flight while wrangling with politicians back home over his $1.75trillion spending bill

The President, a devout Roman Catholic, will meet with Francis ahead of the G20 leader’s summit which will take place this weekend where he will attempt to repair his international reputation after the chaotic Afghan withdrawal 

Biden has fled tanking poll numbers back home and political in-fighting over his $1.75trillion spending bill, in the hopes that the G20 will help him repair relations with a number of key allies

Biden goes to the G-20 with his tax and economic agenda still subject to congressional negotiations. That means he will be unable to show that the U.S. is leading on global corporate taxes, though his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said G-20 leaders understand the nature of congressional talks.

‘They’ll say, `Is President Biden on track to deliver on what he said he’s going to deliver?’ And we believe one way or the other, he will be on track to do that,’ Sullivan said. 

The summit offers an opportunity for dialogue on high oil and gas prices because it includes delegations from major energy producers Saudi Arabia and Russia, major consumers in Europe and China, and the U.S., which is both.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to participate remotely.

‘Perhaps the most important thing the G20 could do is to tell those among them that are major energy suppliers that they should think about their future,’ said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg Bank.

If energy prices are too high in the developed world, it will only speed up the move away from fossil fuels, ‘which is ultimately, in the long run, bad for the suppliers,’ he said.

The White House says Biden intends to engage with other key leaders about energy prices, with oil recently hitting a seven-year high in the U.S. at over $84 per barrel and the international Brent crude benchmark reaching a three-year peak at over $86.

‘We are definitely in an energy crisis, there is no other way to put it,’ said Claudio Galimberti, senior vice president of analysis at Rystad Energy and an expert in oil market demand.

But he said it’s unlikely the G-20 ‘can take any decision that has immediate impact.’

So far, Saudi-led OPEC and allies including Russia, dubbed OPEC+, have ignored Biden’s pleas to increase production faster than its pace of 400,000 barrels per day each month into next year.

In one bright spot, Russian President Vladimir Putin told state-controlled company Gazprom to pump more gas into storage facilities in Europe, where prices have quintupled this year and fears have spread about winter shortages.

But producing nations ‘are in a powerful position,’ Galimberti said. ‘There is no one who can put pressure on OPEC+.’ 

Biden will press for countries to share more information about troubles with supply chains that have slowed growth in the developed world. Port and factory closures, shortages of shipping containers and rising demand have contributed to backlogs at ports and delays for deliveries of everything from bicycles to computer chips used in smartphones and cars.

Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said the president would push for more transparency about identifying logjams with other governments: ‘How do we know, at every level, where there may be bottlenecks or breaks in the supply chain so that we can quickly respond to them?’

Trade expert Chad P. Bown, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, agreed that sharing information can be helpful but said ‘there’s very little anyone can do’ now about the backups over a lack of shipping containers.

Longer term, leaders can discuss efforts to diversify supply of key goods such as masks, other medical protective equipment and semiconductors.

‘There is a call to diversify some production of semiconductors geographically’ away from Asia, Bown said.

The U.S. and the European Union are talking about finding ways to incentivize chip production at home without starting a subsidy war – for instance, by agreeing on which sectors of the semiconductor industry each side would seek to attract.

The G20 leaders’ summit will take place between Saturday and Sunday in Rome, with Covid vaccines, the global economic recovery from the pandemic and climate change set to be high up the agenda