Biden Australian trip, Quad summit cancelled

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed that next week’s Quad leaders’ summit has been scrapped, following US President Joe Biden’s decision to cancel a much-anticipated visit to Australia because of ongoing debt-ceiling negotiations with Republicans in Washington.

At a press conference in Tweed Heads this morning, the prime minister acknowledged that “the Quad leaders meeting will not be going ahead in Sydney next week”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden at last year’s Quad in Tokyo.Credit: Getty

He said he expected that all four leaders - himself, Biden, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida - would instead attempt to have side meeting at the G7 summit in Hiroshima this weekend, and that he would have a separate bilateral meeting with Biden.

The White House announced on Wednesday morning that the US president’s scheduled visit to Sydney for the Quad meeting had been postponed, meaning he will no longer address a joint sitting of parliament in Canberra.

Next Wednesday’s meeting with three of the world’s most powerful leaders was set to be a triumphant moment for Albanese as a global statesman, coming just days after the first anniversary of his election victory.

Albanese said Biden had contacted him in the early hours of Wednesday to inform him of the cancellation.

“President Biden called me this morning to discuss his upcoming visit to Australia,” Albanese said in a statement.

“The president apologised that he would now have to postpone this visit because of the unfolding difficulties he is facing in his negotiations with the US Congress over the US government debt ceiling.”

“These negotiations are scheduled to enter their critical and concluding phase during the last week of May.

“Regrettably, this conflicts with the president’s visits to Sydney and Canberra - including the Quad summit scheduled for 24 May.”

Albanese said he and Biden would work to reschedule his visit to Australia “at the earliest opportunity”.

Biden’s announcement came just hours after Albanese announced Biden would address a joint sitting of the Australian parliament on Tuesday in the first visit by a US president to Australia since Barack Obama in 2014.

Speaking on ABC radio, Albanese said Biden had told him that “he’s looking forward to getting down to Australia as soon as possible”.

“One thing I’m certain of is that the president certainly wishes this wasn’t happening,” Albanese said, adding that Biden expressed his frustration with the behaviour of obstructionists in the US Congress.

Albanese said he was “certain” Modi would still travel to Australia for the first time in a decade.

Modi is scheduled to appear before thousands of members of the Indian-Australian community at Qudos Bank Arena in Homebush on Tuesday evening in his first visit to Australia in almost a decade.

During Albanese’s March trip to India, Modi memorably accompanied him on a golden chariot ride before the start of a Test cricket match at Ahmedabad.

Biden flagged last week that high-stakes negotiations to raise the US debt ceiling may require him to stay in Washington, raising the possibility Vice-President Kamala Harris could be sent as a substitute.

The curtailing of Biden’s travel schedule means he will also miss a historic visit to Papua New Guinea, where he was set to become the first US president to visit the nation and sign a landmark security pact.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Biden said that “defaulting on the debt is simply not an option” for the US and he needed to return to Washington for talks with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders.

“Our economy would fall into recession,” he said. “It would devastate retirement accounts, increase borrowing costs and, according to Moody’s, nearly 8 million Americans would lose their jobs.

“And our international reputation would be damaged in the extreme if we were to let that happen.”

A White House spokeswoman said: “We look forward to finding other ways to engage with Australia, the Quad, Papua New Guinea and the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum in the coming year.”

In the US, debt ceiling negotiations ended on Tuesday after less than an hour. But the meeting between Biden and House Republicans concluded on an upbeat and unexpected note as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said it would be possible to get a deal by the end of the week.

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