Joe Biden aims parting shot at Putin and Trump
Vice-president aims to reassure Davos audience of US commitment to Nato and Europe
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our T&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights.
Joe Biden has accused Vladimir Putin of attempting to “whittle away at the European project”, in a speech at Davos that drew stark contrasts between the Russia policies of the outgoing administration and president-elect Donald Trump.
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our T&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights.
https://www.ft.com/content/7190e2de-dd71-11e6-9d7c-be108f1c1dce
The US vice-president said he was in no doubt that Russia “under Putin” had sought to interfere in the US presidential election and called on Europe to bolster its energy independence and cyber defences. Moscow, he added, was “testing the faultlines between western nations”.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, with just 48 hours left in his position before Mr Trump’s inauguration, Mr Biden also issued an unmistakable rebuke to Mr Trump, whom he declined to name, and sought to reassure his audience that the US would stand by its international obligations.
In a week in which Mr Trump labelled Nato obsolete and decried the EU as a “vehicle for Germany”, Mr Biden spoke of the US’s “unshakeable” bipartisan commitment to Nato and of the “sacred obligation that an attack on one is an attack on all”.
He added: “That can never be placed in question.”
Mr Biden called on the US and Europe to “lead the fight to defend the values that have brought us to where we are today . . . a fight for democracy, a fight to reject isolationism and protectionism”.
