Introduction

Foreign policy is important for establishing strong relationships, alliances, and deals with other nations. Leaders of their respective countries must have a certain set of skills and traits in order to successfully strengthen international bonds including mental toughness, negotiation, and flexibility.

Not among the list of prerequisites is mental cognizance. I mean, it's pretty damn obvious that a national leader should already be mentally cognizant or otherwise he/she wouldn't be leader in the first place. Right... right...?

Well, enter Joe Biden and his visit to Cornwall, UK for the G-7 summit. Having proudly proclaimed at the beginning of his administration that "America is back", one would expect him to come into G-7 with the same sense of triumph and bravado.

Joe Biden's Brain's... Interesting Adventure

To start things on somewhat a funny note, here is Biden's left-field declaration of his eagerness to see British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's wife:

Halfway through that video, you can see Johnson raising his right hand without looking at Biden in a "Nope, just stop" sort of manner. Judging from Johnson's body language, it looks like he was trying to tolerate Biden's weirdness. This would not be the first time where Johnson made that gesture towards Biden, by the way.

When Johnson introduced all the leaders at a table conference, Biden interrupted him and insisted that the former forgot to introduce South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. Johnson corrected Biden and you see him raising his hand without looking at the president like last time.

At the last few seconds of Sky News's video, you can hear a staffer beginning to whisk the reporters out of the conference room. This, too, is not the first time it has happened:

This is not from G-7, but same energy.

The gaffes did not just end there. As he was answering questions from reporters, he confused Libya with Syria three times. In response to another question, Biden said that "a lot of people may not know what COVID is". His staff would later clarify that he was referring to COVAX. Either way, these gaffes are inadvertently distracting. While you're curious on how Biden would answer the reporters' questions, he would say something that makes you go "Huh...?" and throws you out of the loop because you had to do a double-take to make sure you heard him correctly.

There was also that weird moment where Biden said that he would get in trouble with his staff if he took questions beyond the pre-planned list. He did let a reporter ask a last moment question, but when the reporter asked Biden about why he kept Trump's steel and aluminum sanctions, this was how he responded:

However, Biden's claim that 120 days were not enough don't hold water. For one thing, he signed a record amount of executive orders within his first week. From reversing Trump's ban on critical race theory taught in federal agencies to reversing the Stay-in-Mexico immigration policy, Biden has had a rather active tenure thus far. In addition, Biden has been a senator for how long again? 36 years? Add his 8 years as vice president and he's been in politics for at least 44 years. With that much amount of experience and know-how from both the legislative and executive branches, his 120 days excuse is completely flaccid.

For a second time, Biden once again mentioned how he would get in trouble with his staff during the US-EU summit. When he tried to get back on track, it took him from 8-10 seconds to refocus and you can hear him struggling with his words:

For our last Biden moment, there was this clip of an unnamed reporter innocuously asking Biden on how well his meetings were going. After he answered with "Good", Jill Biden immediately called and gestured him over to her before she pulled him away. As she was tugging him, she didn't make eye contact with the other politicians or said goodbye as if she was in a hurry. The way she called him over also came off as strange because it was as if she was calling her dog over. Meanwhile, everyone else broke out in laughter.

Were they laughing with him or at him? You decide for yourself.

Closing Thoughts

While some of these moments are amusing, this is a pretty serious matter as Biden should be serving American interests and demonstrate strength on the international stage. Instead, he kept bumbling his words, saying the quiet part out loud, and making baffling statements.

The EU is not hostile to the US as Russia or China are. If Biden cannot clear the "Normal" difficulty, then he will undoubtedly have an unpleasant time on the "Hard" difficulty. Vladmir Putin and Xi Jinping aren't going to play nice like Boris Johnson or Angela Merkel. Dealing with those types of leaders require grit and quick wittiness. Throughout G-7, I did not see those traits from Biden.

You know what's the funniest and saddest thing from all of this? I would rather have Biden serve all 4 years than Kamala Harris taking over. As I was looking at people's reactions to his gaffes, there were a bunch that agree with my sentiment:

I already wrote a piece on how Harris may be even worse than Biden. This is especially true when we take her recent visits to Guatemala and Mexico into account. But that's a story for another day.