Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mentioned the US “is never going to default” because the deadline for growing the federal debt ceiling will get nearer.
“That is never going to happen,” Bessent mentioned in an interview for CBS’s Face the Nation scheduled to air Sunday. “We are on the warning track and we will never hit the wall.”
Republican congressional leaders have hooked up a rise within the debt restrict to President Donald Trump’s tax and spending invoice, which doubtlessly places avoiding a default on the mercy of advanced negotiations over the laws. The US Senate returns this week to take up the invoice.
Bessent declined to specify an “X date” — the purpose at which the Treasury runs out of money and particular accounting measures that permit it to remain throughout the debt ceiling and nonetheless make good on federal obligations on time.
“We don’t give out the ‘X date’ because we use that to move the bill forward,” Bessent mentioned. Final month, Bessent informed lawmakers that the US was more likely to exhaust its borrowing authority by August if the debt ceiling isn’t raised or suspended by then.
Wall Road analysts and personal forecasters see the deadline falling someday between late August and mid-October.
Bessent additionally pushed again towards a warning by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Govt Officer Jamie Dimon {that a} crack within the bond market “is going to happen.”
“I’ve known Jamie for a long time, and for his entire career he’s made predictions like this,” he mentioned. “Fortunately none of them have come true.”
“We are going to bring the deficit down slowly,” Bessent mentioned. “This has been a long process, so the goal is to bring it down over the next four years.”
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
