In their first face-to-face meeting, President Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed a 21st century version of the historic Atlantic Charter, an attempt to depict their countries as the chief global leaders taking on the world's biggest challenges.

The two leaders pledged to work "closely with all partners who share our democratic values" and to counter "the efforts of those who seek to undermine our alliances and institutions."

The charter encompasses a commitment to cooperate on climate change, technology and science. It also reaffirms support for NATO while underscoring opposition to election interference and disinformation campaigns.

"We must ensure that democracies – starting with our own – can deliver on solving the critical challenges of our time," the document says. By highlighting their similarities as "democracies," the two are trying to create a clear contrast with Russia and China.

The document is a symbolic nod to the original Atlantic Charter signed in 1941 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. That document was a blueprint for emerging from World War II, and included a set of common principles, such as liberalized trade, labor standards and commitments to restore self-government to countries that had been occupied.

Biden has often spoken of his presidency in grand historic terms, and he's repeatedly praised Roosevelt as a role model for his time in the White House. Likewise, Johnson sees Churchill as a personal idol and has even written a book about him.

This new charter comes not after a world war but a pandemic, and it is attempting to clarify what the coming decades can and should look like from the two leaders' shared perspectives, officials said. Signing this charter signals a renewal of the historic "special relationship," a phrase Churchill coined to describe the depth of ties between the two democracies.

Before the two men signed this new Atlantic Charter, they viewed a copy of the original document, under glass, as reporters looked on. The rest of their meeting was behind closed doors.

First impressions

Roosevelt and Churchill forged a deep wartime friendship that some historians now say "saved the world."

There have been plenty of questions about how "special" (or not special) the personal relationship between Biden and Johnson might be. Before Thursday's meeting in Cornwall ahead of the Group of Seven summit, the two men had never met in person.

And yet first impressions had already been made. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden mocked Johnson at a fundraiser, calling him as a "physical and emotional clone" of former President Donald Trump.

Biden opposed the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. Johnson championed Brexit, and eventually shepherded it through Parliament. Biden wants to rebuild America's global alliances. Johnson is seen as the embodiment of nationalist populist politics. Biden ran for president as an explicit rebuke of Trump. Johnson was known for being particularly chummy with the former president, who once admiringly called him "Britain Trump."

Trump, and some political observers, saw Brexit in a similar vein to Trump's "America First" philosophy.

Still, the first European leader Biden spoke with after his inauguration was Johnson, who was quick to acknowledge the president's victory at a time when his old friend Trump was bitterly fighting it.