The White House said Biden, who wraps up three days of the G7 summit in Hiroshima, will call House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy at the end of the summit later today.
“President Biden continued to closely monitor the bipartisan fiscal framework negotiations and the urgent need for Congress to act to avoid a default,” the official said.
According to the official, the US President “received an update from his team last night and this morning regarding the status of negotiations. The President directed his team to coordinate with McCarthy to set a date for the call” .
The call will take place after a press conference Biden gives in Hiroshima, according to the official. It’s unclear whether the call will take place before Biden leaves or on Air Force One.
The crisis prompted Biden to cut half of his planned Asia trip short and refrain from visiting Papua New Guinea and Australia.
And the Treasury has warned of dire consequences if the country runs out of cash to pay its bills, rendering it unable to pay federal workers and leading to potential interest rate hikes, with knock-on effects on businesses, mortgages and global markets.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday that the United States could start defaulting on its debt “perhaps as early as June 1,” as the Congressional Budget Office expected that to happen sooner rather than later. mid-June.
recriminations
The Democratic administration and the Republican opposition are in a race against time to prevent the United States from defaulting on its obligations after June 1.
Republicans are demanding that Biden agree to a significant reduction in budget spending in return for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling, ignoring repeated Democrats’ demand for an unconditional increase in the public borrowing limit.
Democrats accused Republicans of using over-the-top tactics to advance their political agenda ahead of the time the United States would start defaulting on debt as the government ran out of money.
Usually, raising the public debt ceiling is an uncontroversial annual measure, but this year has seen major disagreement between the two sides, and talks broke down on Saturday night in Washington, as the two sides exchanged charges.
“We are not making any demands to avoid a default,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates wrote on Twitter, accusing Republicans of seeking to cause a recession in the US economy.
And White House media chief Karen Jean-Pierre confirmed in a statement that the recent Republican demands are “a big step backwards and contain a set of hardline partisan demands that cannot be endorsed by the House of Representatives.” and the Senate”.
According to Jean-Pierre, McCarthy is under pressure from his Republican Party’s pro-Donald Trump streak, which “threatens our nation to default for the first time in our history unless extremist partisan demands are met.”
McCarthy tweeted on Saturday that the White House was “backtracking.”
“Unfortunately, it looks like the socialist wing of the Democratic Party is in control…especially with President Biden out of the country,” he added.
On Friday, the Republicans briefly left the talks, but soon after they resumed, Jean Biya said he was “optimistic”.
Biden on Saturday stressed his optimism that a solution is possible, telling reporters, “I still think we can avoid default.”
And if Congress doesn’t raise the US debt ceiling by then, the country could miss repaying its borrowings, in an event that could be disastrous for global financial markets.
Read the Latest World News Today on The Eastern Herald.
