Joe Biden’s presidential gifts totaled $46,000 last year
President Joe Biden received more than $46,000 in gifts from foreign leaders in his first year in office, according to an annual report by the US State Department’s Chief Protocol Officer.
Foreign officials presented Biden with 22 gifts worth more than $100, including four pen-related gifts, the report said. The gifts ranged in value from $433 to $12,000 — both were pens.
The gifts belong to the US government, so most will be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration for safekeeping, although Biden has the option to buy them back from taxpayers. In 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken repaid the government $1,457 to purchase gifts he received from Pope Francis.
Often the items reveal the personality of both the giver and the recipient. During Donald Trump’s tenure, foreign leaders courted him with gifts, including a Louis Vuitton golf bag from French President Emmanuel Macron and a gold-framed portrait of Trump himself from then-Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
Here are some of the most expensive and unique gifts Biden has received in 2021:
- A $12,000 writing set belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Geneva in June 2021. (Biden gave Putin custom aviator glasses and a figurine of an American bison.)
- Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani gifted Biden a $9,600 silk carpet in June 2021 – two months before the US completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban.
- Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc himself gifted a $2,700 sand painting to Biden.
- Queen Elizabeth II gave Biden a photo of herself in a silver frame worth $2,200.
- Most Thoughtful Gift: A $780 pen and ink drawing of Biden’s childhood home from then German Chancellor Angela Merkel alongside a tea set.
- King Abdullah of Jordan gifted both Biden and the First Lady with mother-of-pearl jewelry boxes worth $2,400 each.
- The high-tech gift: A $1,050 Tissot Touch Connect Solar wristwatch from former Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
- Most of the gifts came from former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who presented Biden with two dog bowls, two wool blankets, a ceramic mug and mug set, a fountain pen with a bottle of Oxford blue ink, a photograph of a Frederick Douglass mural in Edinburgh, and a face mask with the G-7 summit logo. Total Value: $536.20.
- Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave Biden $500 worth of leather boots by RM Williams of Australia.
- The cheapest gift: A $433 Dupont fountain pen from French President Emmanuel Macron. But it’s the thought that counts.
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