US President Biden postpones trip to Germany due to hurricane

US President Joe Biden is postponing his planned trip to Germany from Thursday because of Hurricane Milton, which is heading towards the state of Florida. The White House announced this. The trip to Angola following the visit to Germany will also be postponed. The US government did not give any details about when Biden, whose term ends in January, would make the trips.

German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit regretted the postponement of the visit. But the federal government “of course understands the situation in Florida,” he told the German Press Agency. “The White House informed us in advance.”

Joe Biden had an extensive program

Biden actually wanted to land in Germany late Thursday evening. It would have been Biden’s first bilateral visit to Germany in his almost four-year term in office. Biden took part in the G7 summit in Elmau in 2022 and on another occasion made refueling stops with his government plane at the US air force base Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate.

Meetings with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), among others, were now planned in Berlin. On Saturday, Biden wanted to travel on to Ramstein. A Ukraine summit was supposed to take place there, to which Biden had invited. Around 50 NATO member states and other allies of Ukraine were expected to take part in the meeting, some at the level of heads of state and government. It is now unclear whether this summit will be canceled or take place without Biden. It would also be possible that Biden would still travel for the meeting in Ramstein.

After the visit to Germany, the US President’s plan was to travel to Angola in southwest Africa.

Cancellation of the trip to Germany is foreseeable

The question arose at the daily press conference in the White House on Monday as to whether Biden was considering postponing his plans because of the hurricane. His spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre responded evasively. Biden recently came under pressure over his handling of Hurricane Helene. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump accused the Democrat and his deputy Kamala Harris of not doing enough for the storm victims. Harris is running against Trump in the presidential election on November 5th.

The cancellation of the Germany trip is not Biden’s first change of plans due to pressing problems in the USA. About a year and a half ago, he canceled a planned trip to Papua New Guinea and Australia because of the debt dispute in the US Congress.

Florida just hit by “Helene”.

“Milton” is the second dangerous hurricane to hit the USA in a very short period of time. Just a week and a half after the deadly Hurricane Helene hit the west coast of Florida, Milton gained strength in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday and was temporarily upgraded to a hurricane of the highest category. According to meteorologists, “Milton” is expected to lose strength again – but will still hit the west coast of Florida on Wednesday with wind speeds of around 200 kilometers per hour.

Florida is still struggling with the damage left behind by “Helene”. The storm made landfall in northwest Florida as a second-highest category hurricane. It then weakened, but caused severe flooding and destruction as it moved north. Well over 200 people in six states were killed.