The meeting ended Friday night, shortly after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and a White House official announced it would take place.

The meeting ended Friday night without any progress, said Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry.

Party leader Garret Graves said it was unclear when the next meeting with the White House would be held.

McHenry said he was unsure whether negotiators could meet McCarthy’s goal of reaching a deal this weekend.

The White House believes the impasse can be resolved.

There are still obvious disagreements and there will still be tough talks between the parties, but negotiators are continuing their work to find solutions, said President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, who is in Hiroshima where Biden is attending the G7 summit.

– We are still optimistic, he said.

Requests for spending cuts

Raising the debt ceiling is an annual exercise in Washington and has been carried out 78 times since 1960. This year, however, the right wing of the Republican Party has decided against it. They demand cuts in public spending to agree to debt increases.

If Congress does not agree to raise the ceiling, the US treasury could be depleted around June 1, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. He said that a default on the national debt could threaten the world economy. The same message came from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

[ Topp-republikanerens beskjed til Putin: – Russland må ut ]

23 oil funds

The US central bank also warned of “disastrous consequences” if it did not raise the debt ceiling, which would mean, among other things, that federal employees would no longer receive wages and state agencies would have to close their doors.

It may also force interest rate hikes, which will have serious consequences for US business and private borrowers, the bank warned.

The current debt ceiling is 31,400 billion dollars, approximately NOK 339,943 billion at today’s rates, about 23 oil funds.

US gross domestic product in 2022 is about 25,500 billion dollars.