US: major differences in debt limit negotiations The mystery of the missing children in the Colombian Amazon

According to the White House, negotiations on raising the debt ceiling in the US are difficult. “We have serious disagreements,” US government spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Japan’s Hiroshima on Saturday. US President Joe Biden is confident that there is a way forward and that a solution is possible. Biden was also closely involved in the negotiations during his participation in the G7 summit.

Recently, the difficult negotiations were even temporarily interrupted – after both sides had previously sent encouraging signals. Republican negotiators called off talks on Friday about an hour after they began, US media reported. In the evening, the parties returned to the negotiating table.

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.

Due to the domestic political disagreement, Biden’s participation in the G7 summit in Japan was sometimes even on the edge. In the end, he canceled the second part of his trip abroad – a visit to Papua New Guinea and Australia – to return to Washington on Sunday immediately after the Hiroshima deliberations.

Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said the blame dispute will also come up during the presidential talks in Hiroshima. “It’s definitely a focus here at the G7,” Sullivan said. Other countries wanted to know how the negotiations went. “And the president has expressed confidence that he believes an outcome can be achieved that will avoid a default.” However, he stressed that the topic at the G7 summit “caused no alarm”.

(yam/sda/dpa)