The meeting of the union of states between the USA, Australia, India and Japan, which was planned for next Wednesday, will not take place, the newspaper “Sydney Morning Herald” quoted the head of government as saying on Wednesday. It had previously become known that Biden would return home on Sunday after the summit of the seven leading industrial nations in Japan due to the impending default by the United States.
He originally wanted to visit Papua New Guinea and Australia afterwards and meet with the heads of government of the security and military policy-oriented Quad alliance (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) on May 24 for talks at the Sydney Opera House. Among other things, it should be about the increasing threat from China and measures for maritime surveillance.
US debt ceiling needs to be raised
Instead, Biden wants to attend meetings with leaders of Congress in the United States to ensure timely action is taken to address the looming crisis. The background to this is that the US government is threatened with a default in a few days unless Biden’s government agrees with the Republicans in the US Congress on raising the debt ceiling. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that this could happen as early as June 1st.
“He understandably had to make that decision,” Australian broadcaster ABC Albanese quoted as saying on Wednesday. The quad alliance will instead try to meet on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Hiroshima. Biden-Albanese bilateral talks are also planned.
At the same time, it is still possible that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese colleague Fumio Kishida will still travel to Australia next week – even without a quad meeting, Albanese emphasized. Barack Obama was the last US President to visit Australia in 2011.
