Negotiations in Congress deadlocked: the United States on the verge of a new shatdaun

Negotiations between Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress, the purpose of which was to prevent another shutdown of government agencies, have stalled. This happened ahead of the deadline for negotiations, and now the country is again on the verge of a shutdown.

Фото: Depositphotos

According to Air forceThe negotiators hoped to conclude an agreement by Monday to give Congress time to adopt a budget law by Friday, February 15. On this day, the deadline for the temporary resumption of government work expires.

On January 25, President Donald Trump announced the reopening of government agencies after the shutdown, which at the end of last year lasted 35 days and became the longest in US history.

The stumbling block in the budget dispute was Trump's demand to allocate $5,7 billion for border fortifications - in fact, we are talking about one project: the construction of a wall on the border with Mexico as part of the implementation of a campaign promise to strengthen the fight against illegal migrants.

At the heart of the controversy is now President Trump's insistence on pushing the bill to finance the border wall between the United States and Mexico. And the negotiations came to a standstill because of the demand of the Democrats to focus the efforts of the migration services on detaining migrants only with the criminal past, and not those who have expired visas.

Democrats hoped to agree to reduce the number of places for detained immigrants by about half - to 16,5 thousand. Approximately the same number of migrants were detained during the presidency of Barack Obama, the Washington Post notes.

In addition, the negotiators wanted to consider the possibility at the first stage to reduce the financing of the wall within the amount from 1,3 billion to 2 billion dollars.

Trump attacked his opponents with criticism. “I don't think the Democrats on the border committee will be allowed to make a deal by their leaders. They are offering very little money for a desperately needed border wall, and now suddenly cutting the number of places for convicted violent criminals,” he tweeted.

He also called the Democrats' behavior irrational and accused them of not wanting to "lock up murderers." “What’s going on?” the American president expressed his bewilderment in another tweet.

Republican chief negotiator Sen. Richard Shelby told Fox News on Sunday that "negotiations have stalled" over Democrats' desire to limit the amount of jail time for people who enter the United States illegally. “The specter of a shutdown is always there,” he said.

One of the Democratic negotiators, John Tester, said he still hopes to reach an agreement before Friday to avoid a new government closure.

“These are negotiations. Negotiations rarely go smoothly,” he told Fox News.

On January 25, Trump agreed to resume full government operations for three weeks to conduct negotiations. Thus, the longest “shutdown” in US history was suspended - the suspension of government work due to Congress’ refusal to approve the budget. He later stated that the negotiations were a "waste of time."

Earlier, Trump had promised that he would reject any draft budget that does not include the allocation of 5,7 billion dollars to fulfill one of his main campaign promises.

Democrats who control the House of Representatives refuse to allocate this money, stating the pointlessness of building such a wall.

"Shatdaun" touched 800 of thousands of federal employees who were sent on unpaid leave or forced work without getting paid.

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