US president Joe Biden to attend G20 summit in New Delhi: What's on his agenda?

US president Joe Biden will visit India from 7 to 10 September for the G-20 Leaders’ Summit in Delhi. During the summit, Biden will address a variety of global concerns, including the transition to renewable energy, climate change, the effects of the Ukraine war, and strengthening the capabilities of multilateral development banks, including the World Bank.

The White House stated on Tuesday that Joe Biden will push for International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank reforms that will better serve the interests of developing countries. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that the two (IMF and World Bank) need to offer a better alternative for development support and financing to what he called China’s “coercive and unsustainable lending” through Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. “We have heard loud and clear that countries want us to step up our support in the face of the overlapping challenges they face,” Sullivan told reporters. At the G20, Biden “will really focus a lot of his energy while he is there on the modernisation of the multilateral development banks, including the World Bank and the IMF,” he said. The aim is to ensure that the development banks offer “high standard, high leverage solutions” to the challenges developing countries face, he said. The move comes at a time when the BRICS group of developing economies is contemplating measures to oppose the dominance of the West-led financial system in global trade at the bloc’s annual summit in Johannesburg. Let’s take a closer look. US endorses World Bank and IMF over China’s development finance Sullivan called the two institutions “highly effective and transparent,” contrasting that to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, a decade-old program to extend China’s weight in global development that has involved large infrastructure and industrial loans to poorer countries. [caption id=“attachment_13030052” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that the two (IMF and World Bank) need to offer a better alternative for development support and financing to what he called China’s “coercive and unsustainable lending” through Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. AP[/caption] “I am suggesting the World Bank and IMF are a positive, affirmative alternative to what is a much more opaque, or coercive method” of development finance China is offering, he said. The US will push proposals in New Delhi that will increase World Bank and IMF lending power by some $200 billion (Rs 16.58 lakh crore), he said. But Sullivan stressed that, as a member of the G20 and a key partner in the IMF and World Bank, China is central to modernising both institutions. “So our support for the World Bank and the IMF is not against China,” he said. ‘BRICS not a geopolitical rival to the US’ Sullivan made his comments as a China-dominated forum of major emerging economies, the BRICS, were holding their own summit in South Africa. The so-called BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — represent a quarter of the global economy, and interest in joining the club has surged. [caption id=“attachment_13030082” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during the BRICS Business Forum Leaders’ Dialogue, in Johannesburg. PTI[/caption] “We are not looking at the BRICS as evolving into some kind of geopolitical rival to the United States or anyone else. This is a very diverse collection of countries,” said Sullivan. US president will applaud Modi’s G20 leadership The US [resident will also commend Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his G20 leadership and reaffirm the US commitment to the G20 as the premier forum of economic cooperation, including hosting it in 2026. India assumed the G20 Presidency on 1 December, 2022, from Indonesia. The summit is set to be one of India’s largest meetings of international leaders. Due to the summit, all Delhi government and municipal corporation schools and offices in the national capital will be closed on 8, 9, and 10 September. Meanwhile, US vice president Kamala Harris will be in Jakarta, Indonesia, for the US-ASEAN Summit and the East Asia Summit. According to the White House statement, her engagement would centre on shared prosperity, security, the climate issue, maritime security, sustainable economic growth, and the implementation of international laws in the region. With inputs from AFP