Biden will visit Germany next week after postponing trip due to Hurricane Milton

WASHINGTON Oct. 13 (DPA/EP) –

The American president, Joe Biden, will travel to Germany next week after postponing the original visit on Friday due to the arrival of the devastating hurricane ‘Milton’ to the coasts of the North American state of Florida.

Sources from DPA and the newspaper ‘Der Spiegel’ have confirmed that Biden will meet next Friday in Berlin with the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Last week, Biden wanted to spend two and a half days in Germany and visit the US air base in Ramstein in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as Berlin, to host a high-level conference on Ukraine. Afterwards, he planned to travel to Angola.

Initially, the visit to Germany was scheduled as a formal state visit, with an official banquet and other honorary appointments, but now the protocol will be considerably reduced, ‘Der Spiegel’ has detailed.

The magazine’s sources add that, in any case, Steinmeier is expected to award Biden with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his services to German-American friendship.

This is Biden’s first bilateral visit to Germany in his almost four years in office. Although the president of the United States attended the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Elmau, Bavaria, in 2022, and made stops to refuel with his government plane at the Ramstein military base on other occasions, he has not yet dedicated a trip alone to Germany.

Now, the 81-year-old president wants to complete the trip shortly before leaving the White House. Biden will retire from office in January.