Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will receive US President Joe Biden and his wife Jill at Windsor Castle on Sunday, June 13.
Biden will then be in the southwest of England for the three-day summit of the seven leading western economies of the G7 group. The summit in Carbis Bay will be closed that Sunday.
The US president is the first senior foreign visitor to receive Elizabeth since the death of her husband, Prince Philip, about two months ago. The 95-year-old Queen has received few guests since the start of the corona crisis and has made virtually no official visits outside the castle since March last year.
Biden is the thirteenth US president she has met since she succeeded her father as head of state in 1952. The only presidents she did not meet were Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Biden is coming to London relatively soon, and it will be his first overseas trip as president. His predecessor Donald Trump only honoured the Queen with a visit after two years of presidency. He showed with some rudeness in 2018 that he did not understand protocols for royal receptions.
That was no obstacle to a Trump state visit to Britain a year later. Biden has long been an acquaintance of a grandson of the Queen, Prince Harry, who now lives in the US.
