Both US parties realize that default is not an option – international expert Kraiev

Oleksandr Kraev, expert at the Ukrainian Prism Foreign Policy Council, said this on Espreso TV.

"They will come to an agreement. Many times, even in the modern history of the United States, it has happened that negotiations have been delayed until the last days. The Americans need these negotiations to be finalized by June 1, otherwise the process of technical default will begin. When, in fact, there is money, but it is impossible to pay it. All adults know that we are not dealing with Trump, democratic socialists, or populist politicians," Kraev said.

He added that we are talking about normal leaders of adequate parties who really understand what interests everyone has.

"There is no question that the Republicans have taken a posture and will not advance these negotiations in any way, and the same goes for the Democrats. Everyone is ready to compromise. It's a matter of money, promises to voters, and you just have to add up the numbers. Now both sides have realized that default is not an option for them, but in order to avoid it, the budget needs to be adjusted. And the question of how much the negotiation process is delayed is a matter of numbers," the expert summarized.

• In early May, it became known that the United States is approaching the debt ceiling. This means that the United States will reach the maximum allowable debt according to the law and will not be able to attract debt financing without legislative changes. This will happen sometime in June.

• Subsequently, the US Treasury Secretary said that the failure of Congress to raise the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling would deal a huge blow to the US economy and weaken the dollar as the world's reserve currency. 

• Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that June 1 remains a "hard deadline" for raising the US debt limit, and that the likelihood that the government will raise enough revenue to push back the date to June 15 is very low.