US President Barack Obama has postponed a trip to Australia and Indonesia, the White House said, in a sign the unchecked Gulf oil spill is now making waves in his broader agenda.
Obama is heading back to the Louisiana coast tonight, just a day after BP placed a funnel-like cap on a underwater well that has been spewing oil for over a month.
The announcement delays for a second time the president's trip to Indonesia, a southeast Asian heavyweight where Obama spent four years as a youth.
Obama telephoned Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to inform them of the decision, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
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"President Obama expressed his deep regret that he has to postpone his trip to Asia that was scheduled for later this month," Gibbs said in a statement. "The president looked forward to rescheduling so that he can visit both countries soon."
"President Obama underscored his commitment to our close alliance with Australia and our deepening partnership with Indonesia," Gibbs said, adding that he planned to meet with Rudd and Yudhoyono on the margins of the G-20 meeting in Canada.
In Canberra, a spokesman for Rudd said Obama "explained the challenge represented by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the continuing strong efforts of the administration to respond to that."
"He regretted that, in view of that, he was not in a position to visit Australia in June as planned."
Obama was scheduled to make his third visit to Louisiana later Friday to check on progress in containing the leak, something that has so far eluded BP and some of the best technical minds in the US government.
Between 22 and 36 million gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf since an explosion tore through the BP rig on April 20, killing 11 workers.
Images of oil drenched birds and slick-threatened beaches are ratcheting up the domestic political pressure on the president, who told CNN Thursday that he was "furious about the entire situation" but "my job is to solve this problem."
Obama's trip to Australia and Indonesia had been an opportunity to show US engagement with dynamic Asia-Pacific region at a time when the global economic crisis has raised questions about US staying power in a region increasingly dominated by China.
He postponed a trip to Indonesia in March after it came into conflict with his successful push for health care reform.
Although the White House had not yet released an official itinerary for the trip, Obama had been expected to depart late next week to Australia and Indonesia.
In Indonesia, he planned to stress Indonesia's emerging economic weight and the role of the world's most populous Muslim nation in battling extremism, as well as to build on his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last year.
In Australia, Obama's aides had said he would focus on strong US-Australia trade links and would mark the 70th anniversary of the US-Australia alliance.
