Joe Biden leads tributes to Jimmy Carter following ex-president’s death aged 100

Tributes have been paid to Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who won the US presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam War and then redefined life after the White House as a global humanitarian, following his death aged 100.

The longest-lived American president died on Sunday, roughly 22 months after entering hospice care, at his home in the small town of Plains, Georgia, where he and his wife, Rosalynn, who died at 96 in November 2023, spent most of their lives, the Carter Centre said.

As reaction poured in from around the world, President Joe Biden mourned Mr Carter’s death, saying the world lost an “extraordinary leader, statesman and humanitarian” and he lost a dear friend.

Mr Biden cited Mr Carter’s work to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil and human rights, promote free and fair elections and house the homeless as an example for others.

Mr Biden spoke later Sunday evening about Mr Carter, calling it a “sad day” but one that “brings back an incredible amount of good memories”.

“I’ve been hanging out with Jimmy Carter for over 50 years,” Mr Biden said in his remarks.

He recalled the former president being a comfort to him and his wife Jill when their son Beau died in 2015 of cancer. The president remarked how cancer was a common bond between their families, with Mr Carter himself having cancer later in his life.

“Jimmy knew the ravages of the disease too well,” said Mr Biden, who scheduled a state funeral in Washington for Mr Carter on January 9.

Mr Biden also declared January 9 as a national day of mourning across the nation and ordered US flags to fly at half-mast for 30 days from Sunday.

Businessman, navy officer, evangelist, politician, negotiator, author, woodworker, citizen of the world – Mr Carter forged a path that still challenges political assumptions and stands out among the 45 men who reached the nation’s highest office.

The 39th president leveraged his ambition with a keen intellect, deep religious faith and prodigious work ethic, conducting diplomatic missions into his 80s and building houses for the poor well into his 90s.

“My faith demands – this is not optional – my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have to try to make a difference,” Mr Carter once said.

A moderate Democrat, Mr Carter entered the 1976 presidential race as a little-known Georgia governor with a broad smile. His no-frills campaign depended on public financing, and his promise not to deceive the American people resonated after Richard Nixon’s disgrace and US defeat in south-east Asia.

“If I ever lie to you, if I ever make a misleading statement, don’t vote for me. I would not deserve to be your president,” Mr Carter repeated before narrowly beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, who had lost popularity pardoning Mr Nixon.

Mr Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights and America’s global role.

Yet Mr Carter’s electoral coalition splintered under double-digit inflation, fuel lines and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran. His bleakest hour came when eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan.

Ignominious defeat, though, allowed for renewal. He and wife Rosalynn founded the Carter Centre in 1982 as a first-of-its-kind base of operations, asserting themselves as international peacemakers and champions of democracy, public health and human rights.

“I was not interested in just building a museum or storing my White House records and memorabilia,” Mr Carter wrote in a memoir published after his 90th birthday. “I wanted a place where we could work.”

That work included easing nuclear tensions in North and South Korea, helping to avert a US invasion of Haiti and negotiating ceasefires in Bosnia and Sudan.

By 2022, the Carter Centre had declared at least 113 elections in Latin America, Asia and Africa to be free or fraudulent. Recently, the centre began monitoring US elections as well.

The Nobel committee’s 2002 Peace Prize cited his “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”. Carter should have won it alongside Mr Sadat and Mr Begin in 1978, the chairman added.

Mr Carter accepted the recognition saying there was more work to be done.

“The world is now, in many ways, a more dangerous place,” he said. “The greater ease of travel and communication has not been matched by equal understanding and mutual respect.”

Mr Carter, who campaigned as a moderate on race relations but governed more progressively, talked often of the influence of his black caregivers and playmates but also noted his advantages: His land-owning father sat atop Archery’s tenant-farming system and owned a main street grocery. His mother, Lillian, would become a staple of his political campaigns.

Seeking to broaden his world beyond Plains and its population of fewer than 1,000 – then and now – Mr Carter won an appointment to the US Naval Academy, graduating in 1946.

That same year he married Rosalynn Smith, another Plains native, a decision he considered more important than any he made as head of state. She shared his desire to see the world, sacrificing college to support his navy career.

Mr Carter climbed in rank to lieutenant, but then his father was diagnosed with cancer, so the submarine officer set aside his ambitions of admiralty and moved the family back to Plains. His decision angered Rosalynn, even as she dived into the peanut business alongside her husband.

Mr Carter again failed to talk with his wife before his first run for office – he later called it “inconceivable” not to have consulted her on such major life decisions – but this time, she was on board.

“My wife is much more political,” Mr Carter said in 2021.

Four decades after launching the Carter Centre, he still talked of unfinished business.

“I thought when we got into politics we would have resolved everything,” Mr Carter said in 2021. “But it’s turned out to be much more long-lasting and insidious than I had thought it was. I think in general, the world itself is much more divided than in previous years.”

Still, he affirmed what he said when he underwent treatment for a cancer diagnosis in his 10th decade of life.

“I’m perfectly at ease with whatever comes,” he said in 2015. “I’ve had a wonderful life. I’ve had thousands of friends, I’ve had an exciting, adventurous and gratifying existence.”