WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden has canceled a visit to Australia, the second leg of his upcoming Asia trip, due to the slow-motion crisis building in Washington over the U.S. debt ceiling, a source familiar with his plans said on Tuesday.
Biden is to attend a three-day summit of G7 leaders that starts on Friday, and will return to the United States on Sunday, the source said.
He was scheduled to make a brief, historic stop in Papua New Guinea, then travel to Australia for a meeting of the Japan, Australia, India, U.S. grouping known as the Quad countries.
John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, told reporters earlier Tuesday the Australia stop was being reevaluated.
“We’re working though, thinking through, the rest of the trip right now,” Kirby said, as he noted Biden would meet India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australia’s Anthony Albanese at the G7 anyway in Hiroshima, Japan.
The Treasury Department has estimated that the United States will go into a crippling default as early as June 1 if Congress does not lift the debt ceiling.
Kirby told reporters that if Biden’s trip “gets truncated or changed or modified in any way,” it should be seen as the president putting his priorities in the proper order.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Steve Holland;Editing by Chris Reese, Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis)
