WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s primary residence will remain the White House for the next few months, but he will host world leaders at his Wilmington, Delaware, home this weekend.
Biden will hold bilateral talks in Delaware with the leaders of Australia, India and Japan as the final stop on the “Quad” summit, an alliance he is determined to strengthen in his first year in office. NBC News first reported that Biden will host the meetings at his Delaware home.
A senior White House official said the president was particularly keen to incorporate a “personal touch” into the two-day event, and stressed the importance of “deep personal relationships” at the heart of his foreign policy approach.
In both group and one-on-one conversations this weekend, Biden will likely show off his home, which aides call the “Lake House” because of the man-made lake on the grounds, and share with them key moments in his career there, including the place where he learned he’d been elected president four years ago.
To wrap up their work and underscore his philosophy, Biden invited the leaders to an “intimate” dinner on Saturday at Biden’s high school, Archmere Academy, a venue of particular significance to the president, the officials said.
Many of the traditional events for such a summit, including more formal leader-level meetings and events tied to the president’s “Cancer Moonshot,” will also take place at Archmere, the White House said Thursday.
Biden recalls weeding Archmere’s lawns, washing windows and painting the iron fence around the school building as part of a work-scholarship program to help pay for the private school’s tuition, but he wrote in his 2008 memoir that one of his proudest accomplishments was working hard to overcome a childhood stutter and become a public speaker.
The meeting marks Biden’s first invitation as president to a foreign leader visit Wilmington and reflects his closeness to officials including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
“These are personal relationships that are very important to him, and he believes personal relationships are important to foreign policy,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said in an interview.
Biden first discussed hosting the summit in his hometown after Kishida invited G7 leaders to his hometown of Hiroshima in 2023.
“The prime minister is obviously very proud of Hiroshima and his experiences there, and that has influenced the president because he feels the same way about Wilmington,” Kirby said.
The White House hopes to use the local summit to highlight strong alliances with Indo-Pacific countries, especially at a time when countering China’s growing influence has become a top priority for the Biden administration.
The Quad is a key element of this, and leaders are expected to announce ways to ensure the alliance “endures” over the long term.
Officials also expect agreements on health security, natural disaster response and maritime cooperation in the South China Sea.
It will be the sixth time they have all met since Biden elevated the “Quad” to leaders’ level in 2021, and the fourth time they have met in person.
Biden also gave the two prime ministers an official visit to the White House, an honor reserved for the closest allies. It will be the last summit between Kishida and Biden, who announced earlier this year that he was stepping down as party leader.
Initially, India was set to host this year’s event, but with the dates too close to the UN General Assembly in New York, the US and India decided to swap responsibilities.
The next summit is due to be hosted by India in 2025, raising the possibility of Vice-President Kamala Harris, whose mother is an Indian immigrant, making a symbolic return if she wins the November election.
Starting next month, Biden hopes to cement some of his foreign policy achievements on his final overseas trip in office.
Though timing is still being finalized, Biden is set to visit Africa, having initially suggested he would do so in 2023. He gave reporters a thumbs up last week when asked if he would go to Angola, a country no US president has visited before.
Biden is due to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru and the G20 summit in Brazil in November, just days after the US presidential election.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.
