Biden will not negotiate with opposition White House warns

Biden will not negotiate with opposition, White House warns

US President Joe Biden will “not negotiate” with the Republican opposition to get them to agree to a legislative maneuver to avoid a US default, his spokesman warned Wednesday.

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“There will be no negotiations on the debt ceiling. We will not do that,” said board spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre during her daily press conference, as the financial situation in the United States could quickly become critical.

She said it was Congress’s “constitutional responsibility” to act across party lines and “unconditionally.” “The question should not be used for political maneuvering,” estimated Karine Jean-Pierre.

The US Congress must regularly vote to raise the sovereign debt ceiling of the world’s leading power, under a rule unparalleled in developed economies.

Without this, the United States could default, that is, be unable to pay certain debts or the interest associated with them, plunging American and world finance into unfamiliar territory.

However, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has already warned that without a political agreement on Thursday, her department should take “extraordinary measures” to temporarily avoid such a scenario.

Republicans, who now control the House of Representatives — the Senate, another chamber of Congress, has a Democratic majority — are threatening to play for time to force the president’s party to reverse certain spending.

The current limit of $31.381 billion was set by Congress in December 2021 after tense discussions.

Previously, lawmakers had raised or suspended the cap 78 times since 1960, mostly without particular difficulty.