U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday departed for Hiroshima to attend this year's Group of Seven summit, cutting short his original weeklong itinerary in the Asia-Pacific region as he needs to continue domestic negotiations toward averting an unprecedented default.
He will become the second sitting U.S. president after Barack Obama to visit the western Japanese city, where the first atomic bomb attack in history was carried out by the United States in the closing days of World War II in 1945.
"America's role in the world is vital, especially right now as we work together with other countries to support Ukraine and take on the challenges (that) demand international cooperation, from tackling the climate crisis to strengthening the global economy," Biden told reporters before leaving the White House to board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
A day after shortening his planned trip to the Asia-Pacific region to focus on the talks over the debt ceiling, Biden also told reporters he is "confident that we'll get the agreement on the budget and America will not default."
At the three-day summit of the major industrialized democracies, set to begin Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida serving as chair, major topics to be discussed include Russia's war in Ukraine, nuclear disarmament, promotion of a rules-based international order and diversifying supply chains.
Biden may also have a trilateral meeting with Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has been invited as a guest to G-7 discussions, as well as a number of bilateral meetings on the fringes of the gathering.
Following the G-7 summit, Biden was scheduled to visit Papua New Guinea and Australia. But he has canceled the second and third legs of the original itinerary and will return to the United States on Sunday, the White House said.
The Biden administration has been finding it difficult to strike a deal with top congressional leaders to raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling to prevent the world's largest economy from running out of money as soon as June 1.
Biden's stop in Papua New Guinea would have marked the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to the Pacific island country.
In Port Moresby, he had planned to meet with leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum, an 18-member group that promotes cooperation among mostly very small countries in Oceania. The stop was meant to be part of Washington's efforts to make up ground in the region, where China's influence is rapidly expanding.
Biden's change of plans also caused Australia to cancel a summit of the Quad group slated for May 24 in Sydney. Japanese government sources said they are trying to see whether the Quad meeting, also involving India and Japan, can be arranged for Sunday in Hiroshima instead, with China's rise and its behavior in the Indo-Pacific likely to top the agenda.
Biden told the press on Wednesday that he expects to talk "separately" with the Quad leaders on the sidelines of the G-7 summit.
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