US president may skip G7 summit over public debt crisis

US President Joe Biden has said he may forego overseas trips, including participation in a G7 summit if the situation with public debt is not resolved before his departure.

“It is possible, but not likely.  In other words, if somehow we got down to the wire and we still hadn’t resolved this, and then — the due date was in a matter of — when I was supposed to be away, I would not go.  I would stay until this gets finished,” Caliber.Az quotes Biden as telling a White House briefing on May 9.

“I’m still committed, but obviously this is the single most important thing that’s on the agenda,” he added.

Biden spoke out strongly against the idea of default after the meeting, saying: “I made clear during our meeting that default is not an option.  I repeated that time and again.”

He stressed that if a default happens "our economy would fall into a significant recession".

Last week, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified lawmakers that the US could default by June 1.

The president is scheduled to attend the G7 leaders' meeting in Hiroshima on May 19-21, then visit Australia for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) summit on May 24, and make a stopover in Papua New Guinea.