Some were valedictory, praising an American president’s legacy. Others lauded the courage they said it took to walk away from power. But a few world leaders struck another note over President Biden’s decision not to seek re-election: trepidation.
“I am keeping my fingers crossed for the U.S.A. that a good president emerges from the democratic competition of two strong and equal candidates,” said the prime minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala.
With its outsize effect on governments large and small, American presidential politics is closely watched around the world, but perhaps never more so than this year. As if the prospect of a Trump redux presidency had not preoccupied foreign leaders enough, there was another urgent question of recent weeks: Would Mr. Biden even stay in the race?
On Sunday, he gave his answer, and threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris, a political figure who, unlike President Biden, lacks a long history of involvement in U.S. foreign diplomacy.
In Germany, where former President Donald J. Trump’s antipathy toward the NATO alliance and somewhat impenetrable stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine have raised anxiety, Chancellor Olaf Scholz pointed notably toward Mr. Biden’s starkly different approach from Mr. Trump’s isolationist bent.
“Thanks to him, trans-Atlantic cooperation is close, NATO is strong and the USA is a good and reliable partner for us,” Mr. Scholtz said in a statement.
In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk praised Mr. Biden for “making the world safer, and democracy and freedom stronger” throughout his career, including by deciding not to run.
“I know that you were guided by the same principles when announcing your latest decision — perhaps the most difficult one in your life,” he said.
Foreign leaders did not wade directly into the morass now facing the Democratic Party, veiling any concerns they had after the bombshell announcement and opting instead for congratulations and statements of empathy for an 81-year-old leader who reached the pinnacle of power only to find it nearing an end earlier than he had hoped.
Keir Starmer, the newly installed British prime minister, said he respected the decision. “I know that, as he has done throughout his remarkable career, President Biden will have made his decision based on what he believes is in the best interests of the American people,” he said in a statement.
The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called it “a great gesture from a great president, ” and Baiba Braze, the foreign minister of Latvia offered her “highest respect” for “this difficult decision.”
Mr. Fiala, the Czech prime minister, said: “It is undoubtedly the decision of a statesman who has served his country for decades. It is a responsible and personally difficult step, but it is all the more valuable.”
The Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, speaking to Reuters, noted that the American president “justifies the decision by saying that he wants to put the country before himself” and said “that reasoning commands respect.”
The foreign minister of Italy, Antonio Tajani, appeared to be staking out a middle ground. “We must look with great serenity to the U.S., a great country that is a friend,” he said. “We will work well with whoever the next president is, whether Trump or Harris.”
In Ireland, Simon Harris, the taoiseach or prime minister, on Sunday evening, called Mr. Biden “a voice for reason” and “a proud American with an Irish soul.” He wrote of a visit Mr. Biden made to Ireland last year, which the president had described as “like coming home.”
“The outpouring of love and support from the public, even in the pouring Irish rain,” Mr. Harris wrote, “Was testament to how highly the president is held in his ancestral home.”
Mr. Biden’s response elicited a predictably less effusive response from Russia, which often denounced American military backing for Ukraine in the war.
The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov, said achieving its aims in its war was more important for Russia than the results of American elections. He said that “much could still change” before the vote in November, according to state news agencies.
“We need to be patient and see what happens next,” Mr. Peskov said,
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