President Joe Biden received more than $46,000 in gifts from foreign leaders in his first year in office, according to an annual report from the US State Department’s chief protocol officer.
Foreign officials gave Biden 22 gifts worth more than $100, including four pen-related gifts, the report said. The prizes range in value from $433 to $12,000 – both are pens.
The gifts belong to the US government, so most have been transferred 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 paid the government $1,457 to buy gifts he received from Pope Francis.
Often, the item reflects the personality of the giver and receiver. During Donald Trump’s administration, foreign leaders showered him with gifts including a Louis Vuitton golf bag from French President Emmanuel Macron and a gold portrait of Trump himself from Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
Here are some of the most expensive and unique gifts that Biden received in 2021:
- A $12,000 note from Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Geneva in June 2021. (Biden gave Putin a pair of custom aviator sunglasses and an American bison figure.)
- Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani gave Biden a silk carpet worth $9,600 in June 2021 – two months before the US completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban.
- Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc presented Biden with his own sand painting artwork, valued at $2,700.
- Queen Elizabeth II gave Biden a photo of her in a silver frame, worth $2,200.
- Most thoughtful gift: A pen drawing of Biden’s tiny home from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, worth $780 along with a tea set.
- King Abdullah of Jordan gave Biden and the first lady a mother-of-pearl jewelry box valued at $2,400 each.
- Top tech gift: A $1,050 Tissot Touch Connect solar watch from former Swiss President Guy Parmelin.
- The most gifts came from former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who gave Biden two dog bowls, two wool blankets, a ceramic mug and mug set, a pen with a bottle of Oxford blue ink, a photograph of the Frederick Douglass mural in Edinburgh. and a G-7 branded face mask. Total cost: $536.20.
- Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave Biden leather boots from Australia’s RM Williams worth $500.
- Cheapest gift: A $433 Dupont pen from French president Emmanuel Macron. But it’s the thoughts that matter.
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