Opinion | Biden had to cancel his Asia trip. Now he needs to repair the damage.

Mr. Biden’s planned meeting with leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum would have been the first time a sitting American president had visited Papua New Guinea. The country had declared a national holiday for the visit, which was meant to showcase American commitment to an often neglected area that has emerged as a new zone of competition with China.

President Xi Jinping has visited the Pacific islands three times already, as China aggressively pushes to expand its influence through trade and infrastructure projects. China is also looking to expand its military presence by signing new security pacts.

Having to postpone the long-planned trip to deal with an avoidable, Republican-created debt ceiling crisis instead showcases the current dysfunction in the U.S. political system, at a time when Mr. Xi is openly touting the supposed superiority of the Chinese model of governance. The United States looks diminished simply for the president not showing up. The cancellation emboldens critics and undermines Mr. Biden’s message that America is back.

Josh Rogin: Biden commits an unforced error in the competition with China

A planned security meeting in Sydney of the Quad leaders — the United States, Australia, India and Japan — was also canceled, although there were plans for the leaders to try to meet in Japan on the sidelines of the Group of Seven meeting, which Mr. Biden is attending.

This was supposed to be the month that underscored the Biden administration’s engagement with the Asia-Pacific region, and not just on security concerns. Trade negotiators from 14 countries met earlier this month in Singapore to try to put some flesh on the skeleton of the administration’s proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) initiative, meant to be Mr. Biden’s answer to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiated by the Obama administration, but which President Donald Trump abandoned on taking office.

At the end of the month, the IPEF countries are scheduled to hold a ministerial meeting in Detroit, to be hosted by Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. Progress on the framework might help mitigate some of the damage from the trip cancellations. But Asians are still complaining that the new proposed framework is not a trade deal and does not open access to the U.S. market — another sign of the United States’ scaled-back ambitions in the region.

This is not the first time pressing demands at home have forced a U.S. president to cancel or cut short visits to the Asia-Pacific region, often convincing its leaders, unfairly or not, that Asia remains a back-burner issue in terms of U.S. priorities.

President Bill Clinton in 1995 had to cancel a planned trip to a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Japan because of a budget battle with Republicans that led to a government shutdown. President Barack Obama in 2013 had to cancel a trip to Indonesia and Brunei to deal with a debt limit crisis and government shutdown. Those cancellations similarly raised concerns in Asia about the United States’ steadfastness and commitment.

The Obama administration famously announced a “pivot” to Asia, which was supposed to reorient U.S. policymaking away from its traditional focus on Europe and its preoccupation with conflicts in the Middle East, and to recognize the Asia-Pacific region’s growing importance to world trade and the global economy. Mr. Obama, born in Hawaii, styled himself as America’s “first Pacific president.” But his administration’s planned pivot was stymied by the continuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the civil war that erupted in Syria. The Biden administration has been similarly absorbed by Russia’s war against Ukraine.

At a time of growing geopolitical rivalry with China, which is looking to assert its dominance in Asia and the Pacific, a real U.S. pivot to the region is essential. It is heartening — but only a first step — that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Papua New Guinea in the president’s stead. This gesture should be followed by more visits — but also by substantive engagement on U.S. market access, as well as military partnerships.

Mr. Biden, like his predecessors, is finding himself hostage to events and conflicts elsewhere — not only abroad but also, sadly, at home in the form of manufactured crises such as the debt ceiling impasse. As long as partisan extremism, rather than reason, drives Washington decision-making, he and every other president might struggle to give the Asia-Pacific region the attention it requires.