MODERATOR: Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for joining today's call to preview the President's participation in the United Nations General Assembly tomorrow.
As a reminder today, today's call is on background. It is attributable to "senior administration officials." The call is embargoed until Tuesday, September 19th, at 5:00 a.m. Eastern. By participating in today's call, you are also agreeing to these ground rules.
On the call today, we have [senior administration official] and [senior administration official].
I will now turn the call over to [senior administration official] to kick things off.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you. Good afternoon. Well, as you all know, this week world leaders are convening in New York for the opening of the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly. President Biden is in New York and will be here through Wednesday.
I'm here to give an overview of the President's message he is bringing to the General Assembly. I can also mention some of the other meetings, including the bilateral meetings he'll be having on the sidelines, but for this conversation, we hope to focus mostly on his overall approach to the General Assembly.
Now, the annual U.N. General Assembly is one of the world's preeminent venues for diplomacy. You — you have leaders and senior officials from all over the world convening in just a few square blocks in Manhattan. The President sees this as an outstanding opportunity for him and his leadership to advance U.S. interests and values on a range of issues. This includes mobilizing resources for sustainable development and infrastructure, galvanizing cooperation on the climate crisis, and strengthening global support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Now, being here, the headquarters of the U.N., is an ideal location for the President to reaffirm our country's commitment to the foundational principles of the United Nations, particularly those laid out in the documents such as the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This is an essential forum to demonstrate the President's commitment to inclusive and effective international cooperation to solve big problems.
So please let me go through the schedule. Tomorrow, President Biden will deliver his annual address to the General Assembly. In that speech, he will lay out for the world the steps that he and his administration have taken to work with others to solve the world's most serious challenges. He will outline his vision for how countries, working within reformed and modernized international institutions, can harness their efforts to end conflict, defend human rights and the rule of law, and help countries develop their economies.
As you may have heard Jake Sullivan say at our press briefing on Friday, we really have achieved some significant foreign policy successes. Our engagements here at the U.N. will build on these successes and find new ways we can work with countries to solve problems.
In addition to speaking before the General Assembly, the President will also meet with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. They will discuss how they can strengthen their partnership to tackle global issues, including mobilizing resources for development, combating climate change, ending conflicts, and working together to uphold the U.N.'s foundational principles.
The President will also meet with the presidents of five Central Asian nations: Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. This will be the first-ever so-called C5+1 presidential summit where our leaders will discuss a range of issues related to regional security, trade and connectivity, climate, and reforms to improve governance and the rule of law.
On Tuesday evening, the President will host the traditional reception with world leaders where he'll have the chance to engage with dozens of heads of state and government who are here from around the world.
On Wednesday, the President will have an opportunity to hold a bilateral meeting with Brazilian President Lula as well as join in an event with labor leaders from Brazil and the United States to highlight the role that workers play in building a sustainable, democratic, equitable, and peaceful world.
Also on Wednesday, President Biden will sit down with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel to discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues focused on the shared democratic values between our two countries and a vision for a more stable and prosperous and integrated region, as well as compare notes on effectively countering and deterring Iran.
We'll have more information to follow on the President's engagements on Wednesday on the sidelines of these meetings.
But please let me close with this. You know, in the coming days, there will be much discussion here at the U.N. about the formidable challenges facing our world. This is a time of geopolitical tension. Russia's brutal and illegal war has gravely violated the U.N. Charter, and we have indisputable disagreements with China. You'll also hear about the great challenges facing poor countries with developing nations demanding more action to solve the problems affecting them, such as debt, health, development, the climate crisis.
But President Biden is going is going into this year's General Assembly with the United States confident we have strong allies and new partners; we have a vision for institutional reform at the U.N., at the World Bank, and elsewhere; and we have initiatives to deliver on infrastructure, on health, on climate, and other global public goods.
The President recognizes the world faces enormous challenges that no one country can solve alone, but he has a vision of how American leadership, based on principles, working in partnership with others, can help tackle these challenges.
So, here at the U.N., the one place where the whole world comes together, the President will lift up that vision and rally countries to do more to make our world safer, more just, and more prosperous.
With that, I'd like to turn it over to my colleague, [senior administration official].
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Hey, thanks so much. And appreciate everybody hopping on the call. And thank you all for being here for a high-level week. We at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. are excited for another successful visit by the President to New York and an intense few days of activity at the United Nations and on the margins of the meetings at the U.N. General Assembly.
Throughout the week and in the months ahead, we're going to continue to strengthen multilateral diplomacy to make the — work to make the international system more inclusive, accessible, and representative; to defend and advance human rights, fundamental freedoms; and uphold the principles behind the U.N. Charter.
You heard from Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield last week, when she previewed U.S. priorities for UNGA 78. And you'll hear directly from the President tomorrow morning, as my colleague indicated, when he delivers his third speech to the U.N. General Assembly of his presidency.
But I'd like to take this opportunity to just highlight a couple of points about the broader context of our participation this year. Since day one, the Biden-Harris administration has committed to strengthening partnerships globally. You've seen this in the NATO Summit and the U.S.-Japan-Republic of Korea Trilateral Leader Summit at Camp David, the President's recent visit to India for the G20, a historic trip to Vietnam just concluded.
The United States is dedicated to working with our partners and with countries — even countries we don't always see eye to eye with to tackle global challenges and advance our collective security and prosperity. And that means investing in the institutions and global — the institutions around the world that brings the world together. And that's why we're investing in our relationships here at the United Nations.
We'll continue to lead with confidence, but as Secretary Blinken noted during his speech at Johns Hopkins last week at SAIS, we remain clear-eyed and humble about the scale and scope of the global challenges we face. Much of the developing world is experiencing food and energy insecurity. Many need digital and hard infrastructure investments or struggle to recover economically from the global pandemic. These challenges have been exacerbated by climate change, Russia's war in Ukraine, unsustainable debt.
As we address these crises, we need to ensure our multilateral system is fit for purpose — that we're solving and addressing the challenges that people are facing every day. And we need to remain focused on ensuring that international institutions, which were established decades ago, can meet today's challenges.
That's why Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield and our team, at the President's direction, have been engaged in intense diplomacy, consulting with countries all over the world on a way forward for meaningful reform of the U.N. Security Council. The United States making a major push to revitalize and reform multilateral development banks so they can meet the needs of low- and middle-income countries. You heard a lot about that at the G20, and I think the President will have an opportunity to speak to that tomorrow as well.
And the President is working with Congress to unlock new lending capacity for the World Bank and the IMF to provide financing for investments in climate mitigation, public health, and a range of other issues.
There's a keen recognition that development issues are intricately linked with international peace and security. That's why this high-level week in New York, the U.S. will engage on issues that matter most are people and people everywhere in an effort to ensure that no one is left behind.
And in that vein, during the Sustainable Development Goals Summit this year, we will reaffirm our commitment to addressing sustainable development all over the world.
Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield outlined this commitment in the speech at the Council on Foreign Relations last Friday, part of our curtain-raiser here for high-level week. I encourage you all to look at those remarks which detail our longstanding commitment to sustainable development. We call on the world to do more and give more.
I'd also note that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You'll likely hear us talk more about that declaration — that Universal Declaration — in the coming days, both this week and well beyond, because it's part of our commitment to the U.N. Charter, the fundamental principles behind the U.N. system, and our own value as a democracy.
Just last month, during the U.S. presidency of the Security Council meeting, we made human rights and defending the Universal Declaration a centerpiece of our month of activity in the U.N. Security Council, including the first meeting on North Korean human rights the Security Council had had since 2017.
During this year's high-level week, we'll work to uphold the principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter, including respect for sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of all member states.
As we know, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it struck at the heart of the U.N. Charter. We'll continue to pursue a just and durable peace, in line with the U.N. Charter's core principles, and will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. And I think we'll have an opportunity to hear more about that during the course of the week.
As the President has outlined, the world is at an inflection point. This year's U.N. General Assembly is a chance for us to make progress on a host of issues. And that's why leaders from across the U.S. government will be in New York with the President to advance that work.
Thank you.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thank you so much, [senior administration official]. I think we'll now turn it to the moderator to open up Q&A.
Q Hi. (Inaudible), but I hope you can hear me.
OPERATOR: Please go ahead.
Q So, my question is more on the President's speech tomorrow, in terms of rallying support for Ukraine. How would it be different than last year? For example, will he still use the phrase "as long as it takes," or will he be more mindful of that kind of language considering the increasing costs (inaudible) among Global South countries?
And also on the (inaudible), will he return to the (inaudible)? (Inaudible) want to get your take on what the tone and the substance of the speech will be like tomorrow.
Thanks.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Thanks. I won't comment on the actual wording of the speech, which — quite frankly, you know, some of it is still being refined.
But what I can say is the President — you know, here we are at the United Nations. And so, the President will absolutely reaffirm our commitment to the values of the Charter. And that includes sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, including Ukraine. And so, that will feature in the speech.
At the same time, there's a lot of other global challenges out there in the world that are existential to other countries. And so, (inaudible) sustainable development, like climate, and like the need to mobilize more resources for — for infrastructure.
So, I think our position on — our principal position on Ukraine has been very clear. It will be reiterated tomorrow in an exceptionally appropriate venue for us — for us to do so. And again, I won't comment on the actual wording, but it will definitely feature prominently tomorrow.
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I would just add one
footnote to what my colleague just said. And that is, you know, that one of the messages that we have consistently delivered about Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine is the way that it strikes at the heart of the fundamental principle behind the U.N. Charter, which is the basic proposition that countries cannot attack their neighbors, cannot take territory by force, and that every country in the world has a stake in maintaining that principle and defending that principle and responding to it when it's been violated.
That's why we've been able to rally huge votes in the U.N. General Assembly to reject what Russia has done. We've been able to do that consistently since the invasion, and we've
seen countries all over the world speak out.
And we've also seen the way in which this conflict has had an impact on countries all over the world when it comes to food security. That's one of the areas we've seen most prominently.
So, that's really fundamental to the international system, and every country has a stake in it. And that's why, as my colleague indicated, it's an exceptionally appropriate venue for the President to speak to this conflict, but also speak to a lot of other things that are on our agenda and a lot of other issues that we're making progress in.
And you'll see that reflected in the events and activities on issues across the board that U.S. officials will be taking part in during the course of this week.
Moderator, having a little bit of connectivity issues here, so you can just go down the list of questioners. Thank you.
