US President Joe Biden to visit PNG on His Way to Australia
Planning is underway for United States President Joe Biden to make a historic visit to Papua New Guinea on his way to Australia next month as the US continues to ramp-up its diplomatic push in the Pacific.
PNG and US officials have told the that Mr Biden is likely to meet his PNG counterpart, James Marape, and other Pacific leaders in Port Moresby, after attending the G7 leaders in Hiroshima on May 20 and 21, and before he travels to Australia for the Quad leaders meeting in Sydney on May 24.
If the trip is confirmed, Mr Biden will become the first sitting US President — at least in recent history — to visit any Pacific Island nation, excluding US territories in the region.
It will also mark a period of intense, high-level diplomatic activity in Port Moresby in the lead up to the
Quad meeting.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already announced that he’ll also meet with Pacific Island leaders in Port Moresby on his way from Japan to Australia, as New Delhi moves to expand its influence in the Pacific.
Biden’s arrangements still being finalised
The governor of the PNG Province of West New Britain, Sasindran Muthuvel, confirmed that Mr Modi and Mr Biden were both expected to visit Port Moresby in late May.
“This will be a hectic schedule [for Mr Modi], because it will only be a one-day visit on May 22, where he will meet all the Pacific leaders, he will meet our Prime Minister,” he told the Wantok Programme. “And … I’ve now heard the US President will come, [too].”
Multiple US government sources confirmed the plan for a presidential visit but stressed that it had not yet been fully locked in, and that arrangements were still being discussed.
One official told the the US president was expected to hold bilateral talks with PNG leaders and top bureaucrats in Port Moresby, as well as meeting other Pacific Island leaders.