Joe Biden called the Royal Air Force the ‘RFA’ while addressing US military personnel based in Britain at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk during his first-ever speech as US President on UK soil last night.
The gaffe came after the 78-year-old President declared that the Anglo-American alliance, forged during the Second World War, was the ‘strongest military and political alliance in the history of the world’.
Speaking to US troops, Mr Biden said: ‘These partnerships have been hardened in the fire of war. Generations of Americans and service members fought them. Like the original Bloody Hundredth, and those RFA pilots.’
He had already been admonished by his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, who told him to ‘pay attention’ as the President stared at troops positioned behind the stage at the military base.
Joe Biden called the Royal Air Force the ‘RFA’ while addressing US military personnel based in Britain at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk during his first-ever speech as US President on UK soil last night
The gaffe came after the 78-year-old President declared that the Anglo-American alliance forged during the Second World War was the ‘strongest military and political alliance in the history of the world’
He had already been admonished by his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, who told him to ‘pay attention’ as the President stared at troops positioned behind the stage at the military base
The President and First Lady travelled to the Tregenna Castle Hotel, where they stayed last night, in an armoured SUV with a union flag and stars and stripes flying from the hood. The traditional ‘beast’ armoured’ limousine was not used
Mr Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are staying at the Tregenna Castle Hotel in St Ives during the G7 Summit in Cornwall
Cornwall is the site of the G7 Summit, where the leaders of Britain, the US, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada will discuss the pandemic, climate change and the threats posed to world order by China and Russia
But the embarrassing blunder could raise concerns about the mental agility of Mr Biden, the oldest ever occupant of the White House – who is using the G7 Summit in Cornwall to tackle serious global issues including the pandemic, climate change and the threats posed by China and Russia.
It also follows reports that Mr Biden and Boris Johnson may not get along so easily, after Washington rebuked London for ‘inflaming tensions’ over the Northern Ireland Brexit Protocol – an astonishing broadside at an ally.
A memo seen by the Times states that the President had used his diplomats to ‘strongly urge’ Britain to ‘stay cool’ and reach an agreement with the EU, even if that meant making ‘unpopular [political] compromises’.
Mr Biden even threatened to torpedo British chances of striking a new free trade deal with the US if Mr Johnson did not calm tensions – sparking fury among senior Brexiteers.
The Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed in October 2019, seeks to prevent a hard land border between the UK province and the Republic of Ireland. Under the terms of the deal, Northern Ireland is effectively in the Single Market and is also bound by the rules of the EU customs union. However, tensions between Britain and Brussels have flared over the flow of UK-produced chilled meats to Northern Ireland, dubbed the ‘sausage war’.
Biden allies had also questioned whether Mr Johnson is an ‘ally’ after he sought close ties with Donald Trump. Mr Biden had himself accused the Prime Minister of being a ‘physical and emotional clone’ of his predecessor.
Yesterday the First Lady thanked the troops their service in her brief remarks, and touted her Joining Forces initiative – a group she formed with then-first lady Michelle Obama to support families of American troops.
‘I hope that you know how special you are. And we are so grateful for your and your family’s service,’ she said.
She and the US President left the White House on Wednesday and touched down at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk in Air Force One just after 7.30pm, kicking off the president’s eight-day trip to Europe.
The UK stop will include this week’s G7 summit as well as face-to-face meetings with the Queen and Mr Johnson.
Mr Biden’s packed scheduled also includes meetings with NATO leaders and EU leaders in Brussels. His trip will be capped off with a sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva next week.
For his first event, Mr Biden will meet US military personnel stationed at the base before heading to Carbis Bay near St Ives, where the leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada will gather for three days.
Mr Biden is scheduled to meet with Mr Johnson for face-to-face talks today – the first time the two men will have met in person – before the G7 Summit formally gets underway on Friday. However, their planned visit to St Michael’s Mount off the coast of Cornwall has been cancelled due to bad weather.
When the summit ends on Sunday, the President and First Lady will meet the Queen at Windsor Castle.
Mr Biden will then depart for Brussels where he will attend a NATO summit and a joint US-EU summit before then heading to Switzerland for a bilateral showdown with Mr Putin.
In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Mr Biden said that the trip is about ‘realising America’s renewed commitment to our allies and partners’ as he attempts to build bridges with Britain and the EU after some leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel clashed with his predecessor.
Mr Trump engaged in a bitter trade row with the EU and slammed NATO members for failing to spend more on defense – sparking fears that he would pull the US out of the military alliance and embolden Russian activity in Ukraine and eastern Europe.
Mr Trump also formally withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Agreement – both negotiated by Barack Obama. One of Mr Biden’s first acts as President was to rejoin the climate accord and reopen nuclear talks with the Iranian government, as he sought to reverse the actions of the previous administration.
The White House has said that Mr Biden will meet with Mr Johnson to ‘affirm the special relationship between our nations’ – a term which the prime minister reportedly dislikes because it is ‘too needy’.
Whitehall is understood to have viewed the President’s decision to make the UK his first overseas destination as a major diplomatic victory for Mr Johnson.
The Prime Minister has lavished praise on Mr Biden since he won power in the election last year, in the hope of striking a new free trade deal with the US.
However, there are concerns that he and the President may not get along, after Democratic sources previously questioned whether Johnson was an ‘ally’.
Mr Johnson had sought close relations with Mr Trump, causing Mr Biden to call him a ‘physical and emotional clone’ of the controversial Republican president.
Mr Johnson faced fierce domestic criticism over his relationship with Mr Trump, but has defended the ties and has insisted that prime ministers should always have the ‘best possible’ ties with sitting US presidents.
There has also been speculation Mr Johnson and Mr Biden could struggle to work together because of the Prime Minister’s past criticism of Barack Obama, in whose administration Biden served as vice president.
Mr Biden is also expected to put pressure on the UK not to renege on the Northern Ireland Brexit Protocol in a bid to preserve the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. US concerns about the province’s trade status could even derail efforts to strike an Anglo-US trade deal.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told the BBC: ‘President Biden believes and has said that the Northern Ireland Protocol, as part of the agreement between the UK and the European Union, is critical to ensuring that the spirit, promise and future of the Good Friday Agreement is protected.
‘That being said, of course the UK and EU need to work out the specifics and the modalities on that, need to find some way to proceed that works both for the EU and the UK. But whatever way they find to proceed must, at its core, fundamentally protect the gains of the Good Friday Agreement and not imperil that.
‘And that is the message that President Biden will send when he is in Cornwall.’
However, there were positive signs in March of the ‘special relationship’ warming up after Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry visited London for talks with Mr Johnson. The positive trend continued in May when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington has ‘no closer partner’ than the UK.