White House sees progress in debt ceiling negotiations Three more protesters in Iran executed

US Government Headquarters announced that President Joe Biden was briefed on the status of negotiations by his team in Hiroshima, Japan, on Friday. Biden is present at the summit of the seven leading democratic industrialized countries in Japan.

The team informed the president that “steady progress” was being made in the difficult negotiations, the White House said. Biden remains confident that Congress will take the necessary precautions to prevent the US government from defaulting.

Due to the budget crisis at home, Biden’s participation in the G7 summit in Japan was temporarily on the verge. In the end, he canceled the second part of his trip abroad – a visit to Papua New Guinea and Australia – to return to Washington immediately after the Hiroshima deliberations.

The background to this is that the US government is threatened with bankruptcy at the beginning of June if Biden’s team does not reach an agreement with the Republicans in Congress on an increase in the debt ceiling by then. In the US, parliament sets such a limit at irregular intervals and determines how much money the state can borrow.

This time, the proceedings have degenerated into bitter partisan bickering, which is dangerous for the US and beyond: a default by the world’s largest economy could trigger a global financial crisis and economic downturn. The dispute has been going on for months.

A senior US official in Hiroshima on Thursday complained that Republican behavior on the issue undermined America’s global leadership and America’s credibility to international partners. It also undermines the central role of the US financial system in the global economy if the creditworthiness of the US government is called into question.

After that, Biden’s opponent in the negotiations, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, was optimistic about a speedy deal. ‘We’re not there yet. (…) But I see the way,” he said.

(yam/sda/dpa)