Jake Sullivan Photo: Mark Makela/Getty Images/AFP
A senior US official close to the US President says Joe Biden will arrange another summit of Pacific island leaders after cancelling his PNG trip.
Biden cancelled the stop-over in Port Moresby scheduled for May 22 where he was due to meet 18 Pacific leaders, on his way to Australia, because of the domestic debt ceiling crisis.
Jake Sullivan, the president's senior security adviser, told American media en-route to Japan of the rearranged plans.
"Within this calendar year, you will see the president convening the leaders of the Pacific islands for a major summit, which will be the second time in 12 months he has done that," Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Biden hosted a summit of Pacific island leaders in Washington last year.
Sullivan said the summit had yet to scheduled, "but we will get it on the books, so that we continue the progress with the Pacific Islands."
Political analysts said Biden's cancellation of the short visit had dealt a blow to US credibility in the Pacific, where Washington is competing with China for influence.
"For Papua New Guinea this was a very big deal and they will be disappointed," Reuters quoted Mihai Sora, a Pacific islands analyst with the Lowy Institute think tank, calling it a "blow to US credibility in the region as a consistent partner."
"Up until now Pacific Islands leaders have been giving the US the benefit of the doubt over its ability to re-engage," Sora added.
Biden's three-hour stop in the PNG capital would have been a first there by a sitting US president, and the nation had declared a public holiday in his honour.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has visited the region three times, including a 2018 visit to Papua New Guinea.
China last year struck a security pact with Solomon Islands, and has continued to lobby for a bigger role in the region.
Washington has made progress in renewing strategic pacts with Micronesia and Palau - under which it retains responsibility for their defence and provides economic assistance while gaining exclusive access to large strategic areas of the Pacific in return.
It expects those to be formally signed on Monday. A third pact with the Marshall Islands has yet to be finalised and is due to expire this year.