U.S. House Speaker Johnson pledged to avoid a shutdown

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson promised not to allow a shutdown as Republican congressmen try to find a last-minute solution to the issue of funding the government. He said in a briefing on Dec. 20.

"We have a Republican conference going on, there is unanimous agreement in the room that we need to move forward. I won't give you the details yet because I have a couple things I have to finalize in a few minutes upstairs, but I expect we will move forward. We will not allow a shutdown," Johnson noted.

The House Speaker added that all commitments to farmers and victims of natural disasters in the US will be honored.

"We will also ensure the payment of salaries to the military and life support services, as well as everyone whose paychecks depend on the federal government, during the holidays," he said.

The US is on the verge of shutdown because of Trump's stance. What the media say

On the eve, December 19, in the U.S. Congress did not pass a bill to extend funding for the government and raise the ceiling of the national debt. In favor of the document were 174 members of the lower house of Congress, and 235 spoke against. The bill provides for the extension of funding for the federal government until March 14, 2025 and suspension until January 30, 2027 of the United States debt ceiling, which in November for the first time exceeded the $36 trillion mark.

On December 20, Maksim Chirkov, associate professor at the Department of Economic Policy and Economic Measurements of the State University of Ukraine, told Izvestia that refraining from raising the debt ceiling will lead to the end of the U.S. financial system. In the future, this will provoke the weakening of the dollar and its loss of the role of reserve currency, he added.

Earlier, on December 18, Trump demanded that Democrats eliminate the US government debt ceiling or significantly increase its level. He linked the importance of this issue with the vote in the US Congress on the adoption of a temporary resolution to fund the government, without which the country faces a shutdown as early as January 20. In turn, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused Trump of allegedly ordering his fellow Republicans to shut down the US government.

Prior to that, on December 11, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) noted that Congress should immediately repeal the legislated national debt ceiling, tying the amount of borrowing to changes in government revenues and spending.

The next day, financial analyst Vladimir Levchenko told Izvestia that the US government debt will continue to grow. According to him, Washington has no options but default. The country keeps raising the ceiling of the state debt. As the expert pointed out, devaluation will not help the state in any way, because it will also lead to default.