In a letter addressed to House and Senate leaders, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced that on June 5, the United States will reach the so-called “debt ceiling”, the maximum amount of money that the government can borrow to finance their own activities. Initially Yellen had spoken of the first of June: the deadline was therefore moved forward but only slightly. The letter explains that the government will have to make scheduled payments of over 130 billion dollars during the first two days of June and that the available resources to do so will reach “an extremely low level”.
In the United States, negotiations have been underway for weeks to increase the so-called “debt ceiling”, i.e. the amount of money that the state can borrow on the markets and which must be periodically authorized by Congress. These are very important negotiations because if an agreement is not reached within a few days, the United States risk defaulting, i.e. no longer being able to repay its debts, and this could have very serious consequences for the American economy and worldwide.