A summit with Vladimir Putin tests Joe Biden’s new foreign policy

FOR FOUR years America’s relationship with Russia was a perfect example of Trump-era distraction: dangerous developments were obscured by an endless political tempest. Donald Trump, his critics and the press all combined to reduce a complex and important bilateral relationship to a psychodrama about the mysterious affection between him and Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president.President Joe Biden is casting the relationship in far grander terms, as part of a long-term contest between democracy and autocracy, represented by Russia but principally by China. He intended both countries as the audience for the displays of unity within the G7, NATO and the EU over the past few days, leading up to his summit with Mr Putin, which took place in Geneva on June 16th.