HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — President Joe Biden was seeking to rally regional cooperation against China on the margins of the Group of Seven summit Saturday while confronting a stalemate in Washington over how to ensure the U.S. avoids default.
The Quad members originally had been scheduled to meet in Sydney next week, but rescheduled their meeting for the sidelines of the G-7 to allow Biden to make an early return to Washington on Sunday in hopes of finalizing a deal to increase the debt ceiling before the U.S. runs out of cash to pay its bills.
The shortened trip has reinforced a fundamental tension shaping Biden’s presidency: As he has tried to signal to the world that the U.S. is reclaiming the mantle of global leadership, at key moments, domestic dramas keep getting in the way.
The president has largely stayed out of the public eye at the summit, forgoing big public statements and leaving Friday’s leader dinner early. He's been spending time instead by a video monitor in a room next to his hotel suite, where aides in Washington have been keeping him apprised of the back and forth of debt limit talks.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan acknowledged that world leaders have been pressing Biden about the debt limit standoff in Washington. But press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that while there was intense interest in how the president would resolve a domestic showdown that has geopolitical ramifications, there was no panic — at least not yet.
“It’s not a hair-on-fire type of situation,” she said.
Also on the margins of the summit, Biden was set to hold a bilateral meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in lieu of what had been a planned visit to his country later this week for the Quad summit. U.S. officials said that trip would be rescheduled to a later date, and Biden has invited Albanese to Washington for a state visit as consolation for change-up.
In Hiroshima, Biden and other world leaders were set to agree on a shared framework for improving their own economic resilience — a recognition that high levels of trade with China have become more of a risk than an opportunity for mature economies.
Sullivan said that the G7 leaders would acknowledge that “we do seek to cooperate with China on matters of mutual interest. And also that we will work to address our significant concerns that we have with China in a range of areas.” He repeated a phrase often used by G7 leaders that the group is looking to “de-risk, not decouple from China."