Biden believes in an agreement to avoid US debt default

In a brief statement at the White House before leaving for Japan for the G7 summit, Biden said that the Republican congressional leaders he met with on Tuesday “agreed that we will avoid a default”, that is, honor their payments.

“I am confident that we will get the agreement we need on the budget, and the United States will not default,” said the president, repeating that this would be “catastrophic” for the economy and the American people.

Biden also confirmed thatcurtou his trip to Asia, after participating in the G7 summit, in order to be present in the “final negotiations and sign an agreement with Congress leaders”. Thus, on Tuesday he suspended his diplomatic tour of Papua New Guinea and Australia.

More “productive” meeting

On Tuesday, Biden met with Republican Congressional leaders at the White House, seeking an understanding to raise the American debt ceiling and avoid default, which, in theory, could occur in two weeks, from June 1st.

After the meeting, Biden said he was “optimistic that there is a path to a responsible bipartisan budget agreement, if both parties negotiate in good faith,” the White House said in a statement.

Kevin McCarthy, leader of the Republican majority who controls the House of Representatives, said, however, that there is “a lot of work” to be done.

McCarthy acknowledged, however, that the meeting was “a little more productive” than the previous one, last week, and that they adopted an “improved” process for negotiation.

The meeting lasted less than an hour. Before that, Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and opposition leaders posed for photos in the Oval Office of the White House.

Republicans advocate reducing public spending and the fiscal deficit and want to reduce the debt issuance that normally covers this gap.

Biden envoys met with Republicans last night to continue negotiations, the president said on Wednesday. The Democrat said he will not accept a deal that affects health benefits.

Democrats and Republicans do not agree with this increase in the United States' debt issuance capacity, although it is essential for the country to meet its payments to creditors and suppliers, public employee salaries and pensions.

Raising this limit is usually a routine procedure in the country, which has used this system dependent on Congress for decades. This time, however, as is happening more and more frequently, the issue is the subject of a political dispute.

In January this year, the United States exceeded the maximum public debt issuance limit, which is 31,4 trillion dollars (154,8 trillion reais, at current prices). Since then, they have applied extraordinary measures to temporarily maintain their obligations.

Read also

Migration crisis: what is happening on the border of Mexico and the United States?

'Title 42' – immigration regulations imposed by the United States during the covid-19 pandemic – will come to an end on Thursday night (11). The result? The threat of a new crisis on the border with Mexico. North American cities have already declared a state of emergency, as thousands of migrants rush to try to enter the country.

* The text of this article was partially generated by artificial intelligence tools, state-of-the-art language models that assist in the preparation, review, translation and summarization of texts. Text entries were created by the Curto News and responses from AI tools were used to improve the final content.
It is important to highlight that AI tools are just tools, and the final responsibility for the published content lies with the Curto News. By using these tools responsibly and ethically, our objective is to expand communication possibilities and democratize access to quality information. 🤖