The White House says President Biden will meet Saturday with leaders of the Quad alliance on the sidelines of the Group of Seven nations summit in Japan, making up for scrapping plans to attend a Quad meeting next week in Australia.
Mr. Biden will join the third-ever Quad Leaders’ session with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Mr. Biden canceled the post-G7 trip to Indo-Pacific nations because he wanted to return to Washington for negotiations to raise the U.S. government’s $31.4 trillion debt limit.
The Quad is a partnership of major economies that formed in large part to deter Chinese aggression in the Pacific region.
“Along with sharing strategic assessments, the leaders will welcome new forms of Quad cooperation on secure digital technology, submarine cables, infrastructure capacity building, and maritime domain awareness,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said. “President Biden thanks Prime Minister Albanese, as well as the Prime Ministers of Japan and India, for their flexibility, and he looks forward to rescheduling his trip.“
Negotiators are making progress on a deal that would extend the nation’s borrowing authority and avert a default, though the talks are upending Mr. Biden’s travels. Mr. Biden left a G7 leaders’ dinner early on Friday so he could get an update on debt negotiations.
The president was supposed to stop in Papua New Guinea and Australia after the G7 meetings in Hiroshima, Japan. Mr. Biden is now trying to make amends.
He invited Papua New Guinea’s prime minister to Washington later this year for a forum among Pacific Island nations.
Mr. Biden also called Prime Minister James Marape from Air Force One on Thursday to confirm that he could not attend a Pacific forum next week in Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby. He assured Mr. Marape that Secretary of State Antony Blinken would represent the U.S. at the meetings.
“President Biden also invited the Prime Minister and other Pacific leaders to Washington, D.C. later this year for the second U.S. summit with the Pacific Islands Forum, where leaders can continue discussions around enhancing U.S.-Pacific cooperation on shared priorities including combatting the climate crisis, increasing trade and economic ties, promoting maritime security, advancing sustainable and inclusive development, and increasing people-to-people engagement,” the White House said in a readout of the leaders’ call.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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