President Biden is expected to meet with King Charles III and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak next week before heading to Lithuania to attend the NATO summit during a pivotal time in the Russia-Ukraine war, the White House announced Sunday.
Biden is scheduled to travel to the United Kingdom, Lithuania and Finland from July 9-13, with his first stop in London. The president will partake in several engagements with King Charles and Sunak ‘to further strengthen the close relationship between our nations,’ according to a White House statement credited to press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Biden will then travel to Vilnius, Lithuania, from July 11- 12 for the 74th NATO summit, and is scheduled to visit Helsinki, Finland, for a U.S.-Nordic leaders summit just one day later. The White House said additional details related to the president’s travels will be announced at a later date.
‘The prime minister looks forward to welcoming the U.S. President Biden in the U.K. later this month,’ a 10 Downing Street spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘This reflects the strong relationship between the U.K. and U.S., building on a series of bilateral visits and meetings earlier this year. We’ll set out further detail in due course.’
Biden met with Sunak at the White House in early June, and the leaders emphasized efforts to strengthen relations between the two allies. Biden and Sunak announced a new economic partnership called the Atlantic Declaration, in Sunak’s first visit to D.C. since assuming the prime minister role in October.
Biden said the plan ‘outlines how we can enhance our cooperation to accelerate the clean energy transition that must take place and is taking place, lead the development of emerging technologies that are going to shape so much of our future and protect technologies critical to our national security.’
Speaking alongside him, Sunak described the partnership as ‘a new economic partnership for a new age of a kind that has never been agreed before’ and ‘a test case for the kind of re-imagined alliances President Biden has spoken so eloquently about.’
In May, Biden did not attend King Charles’ coronation, with first lady Jill Biden going instead. At the time, the White House commented on Biden’s absence, noting that no U.S. president had attended any of the seven coronations of a British monarch since the country declared independence in 1776. Jean-Pierre emphasized the ‘good relationship’ the president had with the king and assured that he planned to meet with him in the future.
Biden called Charles in September 2022, extending his condolences after the death of the king’s mother, Queen Elizabeth II. The White House released a statement at the time saying Biden and Charles had discussed her memory, with Biden touching upon his visit to the royal family at Windsor Castle the year prior.
The Bidens did jointly attend Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in London later that same month.
Fox News’ Michael Lee, Greg Norman, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Caitlin McFall and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
