US President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference following the Group of Seven (G-7) leaders summit on May 21, 2023 in Hiroshima, Japan. (PHOTO: VCG)

President Biden left for Japan on May 17 for a meeting of the leaders of seven major industrial democracies who get together each year to try to keep the world economy stable.

But as it turns out, the major potential threat to global economic stability this year is the United States.

When Biden lands in Hiroshima for the annual Group of 7 summit meeting on May 18, the United States will be two weeks from a possible default that would jolt not only its own economy but those of the other countries at the table.

After generations of counting on the United States as the most important stabilizing force in world affairs, allies in recent years have increasingly come to expect a certain level of dysfunction instead.

Extended government shutdowns, banking crises, debt ceiling fights and even political violence would once have been unthinkable but have prompted foreign leaders to factor American unpredictability into their calculations.

"I think our biggest threat is us," said Jane Harman, a former Democratic representative from California who later served as the president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "Our leadership in the world is being eroded by our internal dysfunction. The markets are still betting against our defaulting, and that's a decent bet."

--Peter Baker, For Biden, Crisis at Home Complicates Diplomacy Abroad, The New York Times, 18-05-23