U.S. President Joe Biden headed for a group photo with G20 leaders on Monday, only to find out they had taken the photograph without him.
The Guardian reported that U.S. officials blamed “logistical issues” for the blunder.
“Due to logistical issues, they took the photo early before all the leaders had arrived. So a number of the leaders weren’t actually there,” a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told The Guardian.
Other world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and French President Emmanuel Macron, joined the photo op.
Biden’s trip to Lima, Peru, for the G20 summit came shortly after he spent two hours talking with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
AP
“The incoming administration is not in the business of providing us assurances about anything, and they’ll make their own decisions as they go forward,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, said Saturday after the president met with Xi.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also missed the photograph. Russian President Vladimir Putin was absent, given that the International Criminal Court is currently seeking his arrest over the war in Ukraine.
Earlier in the day, Biden had urged other G20 leaders to support Ukraine’s “sovereignty” amid Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“The United States strongly supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Biden said at an event on hunger and poverty that included Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “Everyone around this table, in my view, should as well.”
Biden spent what will likely be his last global summit with world leaders, pitching them on supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia.
“These ATACMS aren’t going to turn the tide of battle in Kursk,” John Sullivan, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said at the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday. “But it’s a step in the right direction.”
