2023-05-19 03:38:17
(Hiroshima) Joe Biden has been briefed on “steady progress” in negotiations in Washington to avoid a US default, a White House official said Friday on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Japan attended by the American president.
“The president has asked his team to continue pushing for a bipartisan agreement” and “remains confident in Congress’s ability to take the necessary steps to avoid a default” on US debt, the official said.
The U.S. government expects the federal debt ceiling to be reached as soon as 1is June, if Congress does not vote, as it has to, to raise it.
This raises fears that the world’s largest economy will default on debt repayments, which would trigger a global financial storm, and strangle both growth and employment in the country.
However, the hope of avoiding this catastrophic scenario is currently in order.
“We haven’t agreed to anything yet–but I see a breakthrough where we could come to an agreement,” Republican House of Representatives boss Kevin McCarthy said Thursday.
The Republicans are trying to obtain substantial cuts in public spending in exchange for their green light in Congress to raise the debt ceiling. The White House had accused the Republicans of holding the American economy “hostage”.
Joe Biden has named two special negotiators on the file. The Democratic president maintained his presence at the G7 Summit in Hiroshima (western Japan), but canceled the rest of his trip to Asia-Pacific to return to Washington on Sunday to oversee discussions on the debt.
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