Joe Biden cut a diminished figure on one of his last outings on the world stage Friday, as he admitted that the times are changing with Donald Trump's impending return to power. The 81-year-old lame-duck US president attempted to use a summit in Lima to shore up ties with key Asia-Pacific allies before the potential wrecking ball of a second Trump term. But Biden couldn't help but strike a valedictory tone after his final meetings with many counterparts who are looking over his shoulder at the Republican's looming comeback.
"We've now reached a moment of significant political change," a wistful-sounding Biden said as he met the leaders of Japan and South Korea in the Peruvian capital. "This is likely to be my last trilateral meeting with this important group, but I am proud to have helped be one of the parts of building this partnership." Biden insisted, however, that his internationalist approach would survive Trump, saying of the Japan-South Korea alliance: "I think it's built to last.
That's my hope and expectation." A senior US official insisted afterwards that "as a matter of fact, the president-elect's name did not come up" with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. But that may have been a matter of politeness rather than politics.
Biden prided himself as the man who was able to say "America's back" after Trump upturned old alliances in his first term and reached out to foreign autocrats like Russia's Vladimir Putin and North .
