The Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, announced on Wednesday the cancellation of the security summit of the leaders of the Quad alliance (USA, Australia, India and Japan), due to the last-minute absence of the US president, Joe Biden.
“The Quad directors meeting will not be held in Sydney next week,” Albanese said at a press conference about this meeting, which was scheduled for May 24.
The decision comes hours after the White House announced that Biden would return to Washington on Sunday after attending the G7 summit in Japan, due to negotiations on the US debt limit.
Before leaving for Japan, Biden met with leaders of the US Congress to try to resolve the debt ceiling issue and avoid an unprecedented default in the US.
Biden and the leader of the House of Representatives, the lower house of parliament, Republican Kevin McCarthy, appointed emissaries to negotiate a deal, something McCarthy said “is possible” at the end of the week. The United States debt reached, on January 19, 31,000 million dollars (28,500 million euros), the maximum limit established for the government to borrow to finance itself.
Temporary measures have been taken to keep paying, but negotiations between the Democrats and Republicans remain stalled, with the Republican opposition refusing to raise the debt ceiling without concessions. The Treasury Department had already indicated the date of June 1 as probable for an eventual default of the world’s leading economy, an unprecedented situation.
Currently, Republicans control the House of Representatives and are trying to force Biden to negotiate cuts in welfare programs in exchange for a suspension of the debt ceiling.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged Congress on Tuesday to reach an agreement with the Joe Biden-led administration on the US debt ceiling to avoid a “catastrophe.”
Yellen warns of risks of default and “economic catastrophe” if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling
“If Congress doesn’t address the debt limit, there are no good options that the Treasury or the government can use to save us from catastrophe,” Yellen said in a speech to a gathering of bankers.
Yellen added that it would be an “economic and financial” catastrophe that would reverse the economic recovery achieved in recent years and that could even push the United States back “even further”.
Source: Observadora
