President Barack Obama scrapped trips to two key Asian summits on Thursday, blaming the US government shutdown for the cancelation of a tour designed to advance a central prong of his foreign policy.

After days of speculation that the trip was in jeopardy following the shutdown crisis, a White House statement late Thursday confirmed Obama would miss the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bali and the East Asia summit in Brunei next week.

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