With only a few months left in office, US President Joe Biden is going on a farewell tour. Having postponed his original visit because of Hurricane Milton, he will be in Germany on October 18.
Biden is to become the first US president since George H. W. Bush to be awarded the Federal Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will present the award to honor the US president's "services to the German-US friendship and the transatlantic alliance, which Biden has shaped … and strengthened over five decades," Germany's Presidential Office had said in a statement released before the originally planned visit earlier this month.
The US-Europe relationship, and particularly the US-Germany relationship, has been near and dear to Biden. The end of his presidency will mark the end of an era. Will he be the last transatlantic president?
"I think that's a fair assessment," Michelle Egan, a professor at American University in Washington and an expert on US-European relations, told DW. "That's probably because of his long engagement through NATO, through theMunich Security Conference,........