Trump’s potential return hangs over gathering of Western leaders

“There was a real sense of relief in the room that America was back and actually leading at the table,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told reporters Tuesday. “And that’s still more true now than ever.”

But when Biden arrives in Italy on Wednesday evening for what could be his final G-7 summit as president, he will encounter nervous allies, who are closely following his rematch with Trump and are worried that Biden’s vow that “America is back” will no longer ring true when they gather again next year in Canada.

Trump routinely criticized NATO as president, and some of his former aides say that, if reelected, he would be likely to move to withdraw the United States from the military alliance. Trump particularly alarmed allies in February when he said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to countries that he views as not spending enough on defense.

Biden will also find a changed political landscape in Europe, even from just days ago when he was in France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

Far-right parties in France and Germany made large gains in the weekend’s European Parliament elections, leading French President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the French Parliament and call snap elections just weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics. Polls suggest Marine Le Pen’s far-right nationalists will make massive gains, potentially hobbling Macron’s agenda until the end of his presidential term in 2027.

Kirby downplayed any U.S. concerns about the European election results and said Washington believes Ursula von der Leyen will be reelected the president of the European Commission, a role that functions as the bloc’s chief executive.

“We’re not at all concerned that we’re not going to be able to advance shared interests and values across the European continent,” Kirby said.

The changed landscape will be evident in the person of the summit’s host, Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s hard-right prime minister, who will welcome her foreign counterparts to a five-star resort in southern Italy on the heels of a result in the European elections that is likely to bolster her profile.

Biden will also arrive just a day after his son, Hunter, was found guilty on three counts of lying on gun-purchasing paperwork and unlawfully possessing a gun. Hunter Biden’s legal and personal troubles — he is a recovering drug addict — have deeply affected the president, and aides increasingly worry about the toll it is taking on the elder Biden.

After the verdict, the president scrambled his schedule Tuesday to travel to Wilmington, Del., where the trial took place, to be with his family on the night before he was scheduled to depart for Italy.

But it is the specter of a Trump return that will hang over the summit this week as European leaders contemplate a future in which they may be unable to rely as much on American support and must stand more on their own.

“The shadow of Trump is indeed hanging over the G-7, but it has galvanized them,” said Armida van Rij, senior research fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House.

Some of the summit’s agenda items will highlight the sharp differences between Biden and Trump on global issues.

At the top of the agenda, the leaders will be looking to tap the profits from frozen Russian assets for a $50 billion loan to Ukraine.

The United States hopes the G-7 can seal an agreement to do that this week. “Our commitment to Ukraine will continue to be right upfront and clear,” Kirby said.

Biden is scheduled to meet Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is among the many foreign leaders invited to the summit, and the two will hold a joint news conference, Kirby said.

Reaching a deal on the frozen assets could be technically complex, but it would mark a victory for Biden and other leaders seeking to send a signal of unified support for Ukraine.

“The countries all agree on making a financial effort on behalf of Ukraine,” said a senior Italian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. “They’re all ready, but it’s about the [details].”

Von der Leyen, speaking Tuesday in Berlin, said 1.5 billion euros’ worth of “windfall profits” from Russian assets would be available in July, with 90 percent of those funds going to defense and 10 percent toward reconstruction.

“Now we make Russia pay,” she said.

The leaders are also likely to discuss the U.S.-sponsored cease-fire plan in the Middle East. Pope Francis — who admits to being a “disaster” with computers — will flag the risks of artificial intelligence. Meloni will try to bring Africa to the forefront, pushing her signature foreign policy plan for investment and cooperation on the continent with an end goal of encouraging waves of migrants to stay put.

Over the next few days, Meloni will embody her role as the only hard-right figure to be largely welcomed by both the Biden administration and bureaucrats at E.U. headquarters in Brussels — unlike, for instance, the illiberal prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban.

The leaders will hold six sessions beside the Adriatic Sea in Italy’s Puglia region, with leaders gathering at the sand-colored Borgo Egnazia resort, nestled amid olive groves and modeled after an Italian town. Remote and posh, the location will be cordoned off by a heavy security presence, with journalists kept at bay in a distant media center an hour’s drive away.

On one issue, however, Biden and Trump have been more closely aligned, both imposing tariffs on China for unfair competition.

Since the United States slapped steep new tariffs on Chinese electric cars, advanced batteries, solar cells, steel, aluminum and medical equipment, Europe had been weighing how and whether to follow suit. Europeans remain concerned that more Chinese goods may now shift from the United States to Europe, where, for instance, the once-thriving solar panel industry in countries such as Germany has already sustained major blows from cheap Chinese imports.

Ahead of the summit, the European Commission announced Wednesday a new set of tariffs of up to 38 percent on Chinese-made electric vehicles, far below the United States’ 100 percent tariffs, though the decision comes amid German warnings of a ballooning trade war with China.

“We are not closing our markets to foreign companies, because we don’t want that for our companies either,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a speech last week. Protectionism and customs barriers, he added, “ultimately only make everything more expensive and all of us poorer.”

As a sign of his competing priorities, Biden’s stay in Italy is expected to be brief. After arriving close to midnight on Wednesday, he will depart Friday and head straight to Los Angeles to appear at a political fundraiser with former president Barack Obama, actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel.

Faiola reported from Rome. Stefano Pitrelli in Rome and Kate Brady in Berlin contributed to this report.