Biden hopeful during summit

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Wednesday offered an optimistic outlook on the health of democracy worldwide, declaring that leaders are “turning the tide” in stemming a yearslong backslide of democratic institutions.

Opening his second democracy summit, Biden looked to spotlight hopeful advancements over the past year despite Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine and U.S. tensions with China over its military and economic influence in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

The president cited signs of progress across the globe, from Angola’s effort to create an independent judiciary, Croatia’s move to boost government transparency and the Dominican Republic’s anti-corruption steps. At home, Biden pointed to his stalled push for voting protections in Congress as evidence of his administration’s commitment to support democracy.

“Today, we can say, with pride, democracies of the world are getting stronger, not weaker,” Biden said. “Autocracies of the world are getting weaker, not stronger. That’s a direct result of all of us.”

The summits, which Biden promised as a candidate in 2020, have become an important piece of his administration’s effort to try to build deeper alliances and nudge autocraticleaning nations toward at least modest changes.

He said the U.S. will spend $690 million bolstering democracy programs — supporting everything from free and independent media to free and fair elections — around the world. He said he also wanted to use the summit to foster discussion about the use of technology to “advance democratic governance” and ensure such technology is “not used to undermine it.”

The U.S. also signed a joint statement with nine other countries to deepen international cooperation on countering the proliferation and misuse of commercial spyware. Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom signed on the agreement.

About 40 participants had signed on, as of Wednesday, to a set of guiding principles for how the governments should use surveillance technology, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the agreement before its formal announcement. The guidelines are to be published before the close of the summit on Thursday.

The White House announced plans for the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency to partner with nine other countries to work on protecting human rights and other activist groups that are at risk of facing transnational cyber attacks. The UK is coleading the effort and Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Japan, New Zealand and Norway have also signed on.

Earlier this week, Biden signed an executive order restricting the U.S. government’s use of commercial spyware tools that have been used to surveil human rights activists, journalists and dissidents around the world.