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United States President Barack Obama - Source: Reuters
US President Barack Obama has scrapped his trip to Australia and Indonesia scheduled for next week to focus on the final push for a US healthcare overhaul, the White House says.
"The president greatly regrets the delay," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has told reporters, saying the Indonesia visit would be reset for June.
The rare cancellation of a presidential trip abroad underscores how Obama's political challenges at home have begun complicating his life overseas, stirring debate on whether he may have to scale back some of his foreign policy goals.
Obama had intended to use the March 21-26 trip, his first foreign travel of the year, to deepen US ties in the Asia-Pacific region in the face of rising Chinese influence there.
But his travel plans drew criticism from fellow Democrats worried he would be absent for Sunday's vote on healthcare, his top legislative priority and an issue expected to loom large in US congressional elections in November.
Gibbs says Obama has called Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and both governments understood the importance of the healthcare bill and the president's desire to see it through.
"It is clear that a final vote on health insurance reform cannot
take place before Sunday afternoon," Gibbs says.
He says Obama is to tell Yudhoyono and Rudd "he must postpone his
planned visits for a later date so that he can remain in Washington
for this critical vote."
Gibbs says Obama believes his fellow Democrats will have the votes
to pass the sweeping legislation.
While acknowledging that "international alliances are critical to
America's security and economic progress," Gibbs insists "passage
of health insurance reform is of paramount importance and the
president is determined to see this battle through."
Gibbs has dismissed the notion that Obama's delay of a major
foreign trip because of his domestic agenda would send a negative
message overseas about Washington's commitment.
He says Obama still believes the Asia-Pacific tour will be
important but he "believes that right now this is the place to be,
in Washington, seeing this through."
