New rudeness of Biden to Sánchez: his US tour does not include any contact with the White House

The president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, continues to fail in his endeavor to get the coveted photo with his American counterpart Joe Biden. The agenda for his next trip to the United States, from July 20 to 24, does not include any meeting at the presidential level or with someone from his Administration.

Moncloa downplays this new government fiasco, justifying that the visit will be focused exclusively on seeking investments and exploring business opportunities for Spanish companies, especially in the digital sector. Sánchez will have to settle for visiting Apple’s headquarters in San Francisco instead of the White House.

After Sánchez’s ridiculous 30-second ‘stroll’ with Biden during the NATO summit in Brussels on June 14, the Government of Sánchez hopes with this trip to attract investments in the face of economic recovery, and therefore they are not considered In this case, political contacts with the new Biden Administration are necessary.

Moncloa sources insist on masking this new rudeness of the White House, stating that the relationship with the United States “is excellent” and that there are contacts at different levels, despite the fact that the government agenda does not include any institutional contact.

The objective, government sources insist, is none other than to take advantage of the moment that the economic recovery seems to be opening up as vaccination progresses and to expose the investment opportunities offered by the Government’s Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.

The president’s tour, who will travel accompanied by a group of businessmen and predictably the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Reyes Maroto, will start in New York, where the contacts will be more focused on the financial sector and investment funds and will seek to convey the message that it is a good time to invest in Spain.

Next, Sánchez will travel to Los Angeles, where the agenda will be precisely focused mainly on the audiovisual sector, with a view to highlighting the virtues that Spain offers for this sector.

Here, the President of the Government will also address in his contacts the interest of Spain in promoting the dissemination and teaching of Spanish in the United States, something a priority, according to Moncloa, given that the country is expected to be the second in number of Spanish speakers by 2060 behind Mexico. The Government is confident that a new Instituto Cervantes can be opened in Los Angeles soon.

The last stage will be San Francisco and in this case the interest will be focused on the technology sector, since Silicon Valley is located there and the main companies in the sector are based. At the moment there is already confirmed a visit to Apple’s headquarters at the invitation of the firm.

Tour of the Baltic countries

Before his trip to the United States, the President of the Government will make a tour of the three Baltic countries next week, on the occasion of the centenary of the establishment of bilateral relations – in 1921 with Estonia and Latvia and in 1922 with Lithuania – and that will also give him It will allow visiting Spanish soldiers stationed in Latvia and Lithuania on NATO missions.

The tour will start on July 6 in Estonia, where Sánchez will hold two meetings with its president, Kersti Kaljulaid, and with its prime minister, Kaja Kallas, as well as with the President of Parliament. In addition, you will have the opportunity to visit with Call the exhibition ‘Zuloaga, the soul of Spain’.

He will then travel to Latvia, where in addition to meeting his prime minister, Arturs Krisjanis Karins, will visit the 300 Spanish soldiers stationed at the base of Adazi within the framework of NATO’s operation ‘Enhanced Forward Presence’.

Finally, the Prime Minister will travel to Lithuania. Here the visit will start at the base of Siauliai where seven Spanish Eurofighter aircraft they are deployed until August 31 in the Baltic Air Police mission, also of the Atlantic Alliance.

Before moving to Vilnius, Sánchez will meet at the same base with the Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda. In the capital, he will meet with the country’s prime minister, Ingrida Šimonytė.

The agenda in this country is completed with a meeting with the president of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation, Arvydas Sabonis, who was a Real Madrid player, and with the main opposition leader of Belarus, Svetlana Tijanóvskaya, whom he was unable to receive during his visit. to Madrid a few months ago because he was in quarantine for COVID-19.