Biden aims to put final stamp on Quad partnership with hometown summit

By Arlette Saenz and Samantha Waldenberg, CNN

(CNN) — President Joe Biden is convening the leaders of Australia, India and Japan for a Quad summit in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, this weekend, aiming to put a final stamp on an alliance he hopes will endure beyond his presidency.

The current partnership is set to enter a new era as half of its leaders — Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida — will soon leave office. With an eye to burnishing his foreign policy legacy, the president is turning to alliances like the Quad to make a final diplomatic push to counterbalance China’s rising influence as he prepares to hand off to a new administration.

Even as officials express confidence in the staying power of the Quad grouping, the question of whether Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump will lead the next administration, and what approach they will take to alliances and China, could loom large over the weekend gathering as the four leaders map out next steps in their agenda.

The Quad, which Biden elevated to the leader level at the start of his term, has been a key pillar of his strategy in the Indo-Pacific. China and its aggressive moves in the South-China Sea is expected to feature high on the agenda when the leaders meet on Saturday, US officials said.

National security communications adviser John Kirby on Wednesday said he anticipates the leaders will discuss the “challenges that still exist in the region caused by aggressive PRC military action, for instance; unfair trade practices; tensions over the Taiwan Strait.”

In their fourth in-person gathering, they are expected to make announcements on maritime security and joint Coast Guard cooperation. The leaders will also focus on collaboration relating to humanitarian and natural disaster response, infrastructure and critical and emerging technologies.

But the most personal announcement for the president will focus on new joint efforts to fight cancer. The Quad leaders will launch a new partnership aimed at reducing cervical cancer in the Indo-Pacific, a global extension of the president’s signature “Cancer Moonshot” initiative, a US official said.

This is expected to include efforts to provide more cervical cancer screenings in the region and increase vaccinations for human papillomavirus or HPV, a main cause for cervical cancer.

The Cancer Moonshot is among the president’s most personal White House initiatives. The program, which works to end cancer, launched when Biden was vice president following the death of his son Beau from brain cancer. It received a boost in funding in 2022, aimed at ramping up cutting-edge cancer research.

The move comes as the president is looking to put a personal touch on his final gathering with Kishida, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The president will welcome the leaders to Wilmington, located about 100 miles north of Washington, DC, and home to about 71,000 people. India was initially set to host the Quad summit this year but agreed to swap duties as Biden’s time in office dwindled down. The leaders will be meeting ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York City next week.

Over the course of two days, Biden will host each of the leaders for bilateral meetings at his private home where he often decamps on the weekends. The president will meet with Albanese on Friday and follow with similar sit-downs with Kishida and Modi on Saturday.

Those one-on-one discussions are expected to be closed to press, a break from the approach to most of the president’s bilateral meetings where reporters typically have an opportunity to witness at least a limited portion of the event.

The main Quad gathering will take place at Archmere Academy, the private Catholic school Biden attended in Claymont, Delaware. This will include a leaders-level meeting, the Cancer Moonshot event and a private dinner.

Several US presidents have used their own homes to foster personal relationships with world leaders. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan and first lady Nancy Reagan hosted Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at his ranch in the Santa Ynez Mountains in California.

Plans for horse riding, a mutually loved hobby, were scrapped due to rain on the day of the visit, but the royals and Reagans spent time together over a Mexican-style lunch featuring enchiladas and tacos.

President George W. Bush twice hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin at his family homes — once at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in 2001 and again in 2007 at Walker’s Point, the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. At that meeting, the two leaders — along with former President George H.W. Bush — went fishing on the sidelines of talks about missile defense systems.

Trump invited several world leaders to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, while in office. A visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which featured a day of golf, turned into a real-time diplomatic strategy session as the two leaders received word of an unexpected missile launch by North Korea in the middle of dinner at the private club.

The two — with the help of light from aides’ cell phones — pored over documents on a dimly lit patio together in plain sight of the club’s members and guests.

As Biden turns to his own hometown diplomacy this weekend, Kirby said he’s focused on “showing them a place and a community that shaped so much of the public servant and the leader that he became.”

He added, “It’s also a reflection of his belief that, like politics, foreign policy is also personal.”

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