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NEW YORK — The EU’s top leaders on Monday bluntly accused U.S. President Joe Biden of disloyalty to the transatlantic alliance, and demanded he explain why he misled France and other European partners in forging a new strategic tie-up with the U.K. and Australia in the Indo-Pacific.

The extraordinary rebuke of the new American president, whose election was celebrated across Europe as an opportunity to rejuvenate ties after the four years of belligerence and combativeness of Donald J. Trump, raised the prospect of a grave and prolonged breach among Western powers.

“With the new Joe Biden administration, America is back,” European Council President Charles Michel told reporters in New York, as world leaders convened for the high-level debate of the U.N. General Assembly. “What does it mean America is back? Is America back in America or somewhere else? We don’t know.”