Washington [US], May 18: Reuters news agency on May 17, citing a notice from the White House, said that US President Joe Biden canceled a trip to Papua New Guinea and Australia to deal with domestic issues.
Earlier, Mr. Biden had planned his first visit to Papua New Guinea to try to contain Beijing's influence in the Pacific.
Following the announcement from the White House, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida withdrew plans to visit Australia. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later also announced the cancellation of the Quad summit, scheduled to take place in Sydney next week. Instead, Mr. Albanese said the leaders of Australia, the US, India and Japan will meet right away at the summit of the top 7 economies (G7) in Japan this weekend.
President Biden is facing public debt problems and must negotiate with Congress to prevent the prospect of a default of the leading economy, which is expected to happen on June 1.
According to CNN, the discussion on May 16 between President Biden and US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy made some progress. Mr. Biden called the meeting with congressional leadership "productive" and said he believed the parties would "continue to make progress to avoid default". McCarthy also said a deal could be struck by the end of the week, but noted that differences between him and the White House remained sizable.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper
