U.S. President Joe Biden will not travel to Papua New Guinea and Australia later this month as originally planned due to the ongoing stalemate in negotiations with congressional leaders to address the debt ceiling crisis, the White House announced Tuesday.

Biden will still go to Hiroshima, Japan, the first leg of the trip, to participate in the three-day Group of Seven (G7) summit beginning Friday.

He will return to Washington after the summit's completion "for meetings with congressional leaders to ensure that Congress takes action by the deadline to avert default," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Biden would have become the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Pacific island country of Papua New Guinea, to be followed by a trip to Sydney for the leaders' summit of the Quad, which includes the United States, Japan, India and Australia.

In a call with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier in the day, Biden informed Albanese he was postponing a visit to Australia and invited Albanese for an official state visit to the United States "at a time to be agreed by the teams," Jean-Pierre said.

She said Biden's team also "engaged with" the team of Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape "to inform them as well."

Before the official announcement, news of the shortening of the trip was reported by multiple media outlets, citing people familiar with the matter. The decision came as Biden was meeting with congressional leaders from both the Democratic and Republican parties in the Oval Office over the debt ceiling issue.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reaffirmed Monday that the United States may default on its debt obligations as soon as June 1 if the partisan fight drags on without a settlement.

Biden will depart Washington on Wednesday, stopping over Anchorage, Alaska, before arriving in Japan on Thursday, according to the travel guidance announced previously by the White House.

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