Joe Biden said he was "quite optimistic". The US president and Republican leader in Congress Kevin McCarthy have finally reached an agreement in principle on the thorny issue of debt, according to the Republican leader. A crucial step to avoid a default by the world's leading economic power a few days before the deadline.
The Republican-majority House of Representatives will vote on Wednesday, his boss said. Then comes the Senate, with a Democratic majority.
"This agreement is a compromise, which means that everyone does not get everything they want," responded Joe Biden, ensuring that the text, whose details are not known, "reduced spending while protecting essential public programs." This agreement avoids a "catastrophic (payment) default".
" READ ALSO Towards a major economic crisis? 5 minutes to understand the risk of U.S. default
Kevin McCarthy said in a short speech that the budget compromise found, which he did not give details, was "quite worthy of the American people".
The conservative leader only welcomed the "historic cuts" in public spending that he said the agreement provides, which was the main demand of the Republicans.
Refusal of a "blank cheque"
Kevin McCarthy said he would meet again on Sunday with Joe Biden and publish the text on the same day, the result of difficult negotiations.
According to several American media, the agreement reached between the executive and the opposition raises for two years, so until after the presidential election of 2024, the public debt ceiling of the United States.
Without raising this limit, the world's leading power risked defaulting on June 5, unable to honor its financial commitments: salaries, pensions or repayments to its creditors.
Like almost all major economies, the United States lives on credit. But unlike other developed countries, America regularly comes up against a legal constraint: the debt ceiling, the maximum amount of debt of the United States, which must be formally raised by Congress.
From this routine legislative procedure, the Republicans, who have held the majority in the House of Representatives since January, have turned into an instrument of political pressure.
Refusing to give a so-called "blank check" to the Democratic president, they have conditioned any increase in this ceiling, currently set at $ 31.400 trillion, to budget cuts.
Joe Biden, a candidate for re-election, has long refused to come to the negotiating table, accusing the opposition of holding the US economy "hostage" by demanding such cuts.
"Under surveillance"
After several meetings at the White House between the two men, the teams of the president and the Republican "speaker" finally got down to endless negotiation sessions - all extensively commented by all Washington.
The agreement in principle reached on Saturday night gives some air to the financial markets, which have never really panicked but that this paralysis was beginning to impatient. It is indeed very common for last-minute compromises to be reached on this type of dossier.
The rating agency Fitch had placed Thursday "under surveillance" the AAA rating of the United States, considering that the failure to find an agreement "would constitute a negative sign in terms of governance".
The world economy, already plagued by "high uncertainty", could have "done without" these tense negotiations, also criticized the director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva.
Still, this compromise must now be validated by the Senate, narrowly controlled by the Democrats, and by the House of Representatives, on which the conservatives have a fragile majority.
Some progressives within the Democratic Party, as well as elected representatives of the Republican Party, have threatened not to ratify, or to delay as much as possible a text that would make too many concessions to the opposing camp.
A Republican elected to the House of Representatives, Bob Good, said Saturday that in view of what he knew about the compromise, "no elected representative claiming to be from the conservative camp could justify a positive vote".