Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off this Monday for the Fourth of July but will be back in your inboxes on Tuesday. We hope absence makes the heart grow fonder. Canada’s JUSTIN TRUDEAU threw his arm around him. NATO Secretary General JENS STOLTENBERG praised him for revitalizing the alliance. And BORIS JOHNSON saluted him and their peers by declaring, “G7: Ride for life!” In Washington, President JOE BIDEN at times is a man alone. But in Europe, he has plenty of friends. Biden’s just-completed week at a pair of overseas summits revealed a leader at ease, comfortable with diplomacy and enjoying the broad powers a president has on foreign policy. And his warm interactions with other heads of state revealed their relief at no longer dealing with DONALD TRUMP. They also offered clues as to which ones tried to curry favor with Biden. He has long been a tactile politician, eager to shake hands and slap backs whether in Washington or overseas. Biden spent decades on the Senate’s foreign affairs committee, logging tens of thousands of miles crisscrossing the globe. His international travel only picked up during his eight years as BARACK OBAMA’s vice president, when he was often deployed to represent the administration, whether in the corridors of power in Brussels or at U.S. military barracks in Baghdad. Biden’s first months in office, when COVID was still tearing through a largely unvaccinated global population, forced him to largely rely on remote meetings with his fellow leaders. Those were times plagued by technical issues — like when Trudeau spent much of a virtual meeting looking into the wrong camera. Biden also missed the intimacy of being in the room with someone since he believes that’s when deals get made. More than once, he declared to aides he “couldn’t do diplomacy by Zoom,” while adding a colorful choice adjective. He has since relished hosting leaders at the White House or traveling overseas, particularly at summits when the United States, for all its domestic woes, still gets treated like the world’s leading superpower. This week in Europe, other leaders crowded around Biden, eager to chat. And because the U.S. president is customarily placed in the center of the table or middle of the group photo, the rest of the world revolved around Biden. The G-7 in the Bavarian Alps was particularly chummy. None of the other leaders held office when Biden traveled the world as vice president just six years ago, but some have since struck friendships, namely Trudeau, whose father Pierre was prime minister when Biden traveled to Ottawa as a senator. The two men were often spotted together, including when they shared a laugh in the moments ahead of a group photo. France’s EMMANUEL MACRON was so eager for a few minutes of Biden’s time that he broke into a brisk walk chasing him down one evening on the deck of the Schloss Elmau, the grand German summit site perched atop a mountain. URSULA VON DER LEYEN, the head of the European Commission, has always been fond of Biden, addressing him as “Dear Joe” and frequently expressing relief that the tumultuous years of Trump were behind them. And then there was Johnson. The famously disheveled British prime minister, having narrowly escaped a vote of no confidence by his own political party back home, seemed to enjoy the summits more than anyone. When a meeting room at the summit site grew warm, he asked, “Jackets on? Jackets off? Shall we take our clothes off?” He then proceeded to joke with Trudeau about sending an intimidating message to Russia’s VLADIMIR PUTIN — whose shirtless horseback-riding photos have become notorious — by doffing their own tops, declaring: “We’ve got to show them our pecs!” The shirts, mercifully, stayed on, but the ties were gone — and sometimes the jackets, too — and a bemused Biden went along with the new summit dress code. Putin later hit back against the group, saying it would be a “disgusting sight” if the leaders went bare-chested. At NATO, Biden was even more in his element. He pushed the soon-to-be-expanded alliance to stand with Ukraine and basked in the praise of other leaders for reviving the once-moribund group. Stoltenberg underscored the vitality of the American efforts and Biden cozied up to both Spain’s king and prime minister, at one point throwing his arm around the waist of the elected official’s wife while they talked. There were no signs of personal tension that often came with Trump’s visits to these summits. At one, the former president tossed Starburst candies at the table in front of then-German Chancellor ANGELA MERKEL, barking, “Don't say I never give you anything,” while another time he shoved — shoved! — aside the prime minister of Montenegro so he could get a better spot for a family photo. Many of the leaders who dispersed from Madrid returned home to face political weakness, including Johnson, Macron and, of course, Biden. But at the summit at least, it was a picture of unity, resolve and smiles. And shirts. TEXT US — Are you URSULA VON DER LEYEN, the president of the European Commission? We want to hear from you! And we’ll keep you anonymous if you’d like. Or if you think we missed something in today’s edition, let us know and we may include it tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com or you can text/Signal/Wickr Alex at 8183240098.
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