Biden Misses Group Photo with World Leaders at His Last G20

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A large group of people stands on a platform, clapping, with a marina and a large mountain in the background. The stage banner reads "Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty." The scene is sunny and clear.

President Joe Biden missed the group photo of world leaders at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro because of a logistical failure.

Biden wasn’t the only world leader to miss the photo; Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were also absent from the shot.

According to the Associated Press, U.S. officials blamed the photo shoot fail on timing. The U.S. President arrived just after the photo had been taken with a video circulating online (below) showing Biden, Trudeau, and Meloni arriving at the location, realizing they had missed the photo, and then turning back around.

Biden, Meloni, Trudeau, no photo. pic.twitter.com/MlsWR5jVfB

— Tais Machorro (@Thais_Machorro) November 19, 2024

The photo saw the other world leaders linking arms and smiling for the photo. The Chinese President Xi Jinping stood in the front row close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Conspicuous by his absence from the G20 summit was Russian President Vladimir Putin whose arrest is sought by the international criminal court for the war in Ukraine. But the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was present in the back row.

A large group of people in formal attire stand together at an outdoor event. A banner reads "Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty - Rio de Janeiro - 2024." A mountain and harbor with boats are visible in the background.

A senior Biden administration official told the Associated Press off the record that Biden and the other leaders missed the photo because of “logistical issues.” Biden had intended to be part of the photo, but it occurred earlier than scheduled.

It was Biden’s last opportunity to be in a G20 photo before he is replaced by Donald Trump next year.

A group of people posing for a photo at the "Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty" event in Rio de Janeiro 2024. They stand on a stage with palm trees and Sugarloaf Mountain in the background.

The world leaders lined up beneath sunny skies outside Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Modern Art. The leaders chatted and joked as the Brazilian city’s iconic Sugarloaf Mountain loomed in the background.

“Due to logistical issues, they took the photo early before all the leaders had arrived. So a number of the leaders weren’t actually there,” a U.S. official tells The Guardian on condition of anonymity.

Earlier this week, Biden had another photo opportunity go slightly awry at this year’s APEC summit in Peru. Some critics bristled because Biden was at the back and to the far side of the photo while China’s Xi Jinping was front and center.

Image credits: Ricardo Stuckert/PR

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