Thursday, April 29, marks 100 days since he took up office in the White House as head of state.
According to TASS, US President Joe Biden spoke for the first time to members of both houses of Congress. The main part of his report was devoted to the internal agenda. Biden gave a special place in his speech to the problem of systemic racism in the United States. Touching upon the international agenda, the American president spoke about how he sees possible relations with Russia.
The US President said that the United States and Russia are able to cooperate, despite the sharp differences between them, but Washington will react to those steps of Moscow, which it considers unfriendly. At the same time, Biden stressed that Russia and the United States, despite all the contradictions, are capable of working together.
“As for Russia. I know that some of you are worried about this. But I made it very clear to Putin that we are not seeking escalation. Nevertheless, their actions will have consequences if it turns out that they were actually undertaken”, – Biden continued, pronouncing the word “escalation” on the fourth try.
“And it turned out that they were undertaken. Therefore, I reacted in a straightforward and proportional way to Russian interference in our elections and cyber attacks on our government and business. They took both actions. And I told them that we will answer, and we did just that”.
At the same time, Biden stressed that Russia and the United States, despite all the contradictions, can work together.
“We can also cooperate when it is in our mutual interest to do so. We did this when we extended the New START Treaty on Nuclear Weapons. And we are working to do the same in the fight against climate change”, – said the American leader.
The US President recalled that Russia took part in the multilateral virtual summit on combating global warming, organized recently at the initiative of Washington.
“I fulfilled my commitment to convene a climate summit right here in America, with all the world’s largest economies – from China and Russia to India and the European Union – in the first 100 days of the presidency”, – Biden said.