If the debt crisis roiling Washington were eventually to send the United States crashing into recession, its economy would hardly sink alone.
The repercussions of a first-ever default on the federal debt would quickly reverberate around the world.
“No corner of the global economy will be spared” if the U.S. government defaulted and the crisis weren’t resolved quickly, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
Zandi and two colleagues at Moody’s have concluded that even if the debt limit were breached for no more than week, the U.S. economy would weaken so much, so fast, as to wipe out roughly 1.5 million jobs.
And if a government default were to last much longer — well into the summer — the consequences would be far more dire, Zandi and his colleagues found in their analysis: U.S. economic growth would sink, 7.8 million American jobs would vanish, borrowing rates would jump, the U.S. unemployment rate would soar from the current 3.4 per cent to eight per cent and a stock-market plunge would erase $10 trillion US in household wealth.
U.S. President Joe Biden hosted debt limit talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday with no agreement reached. (Leah Millis/Reuters)
Of course, it might not come to that.
The White House and House Republicans, seeking a breakthrough, continue debt-limit negotiations. U.S. President Joe Biden met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy Monday, with both describing their talks as “productive.”
Still, the Republicans have threatened to let the government default on its debts by refusing to raise the statutory limit on what it can borrow unless Biden and the Democrats accept sharp spending cuts and other concessions.
Potentially ‘cataclysmic’
So much financial activity worldwide hinges on confidence that the U.S. will always pay its financial obligations. Its debt, long viewed as an ultra-safe asset, is a foundation of global commerce, built on decades of trust in the United States. A default could shatter the $24 trillion US market for Treasury debt, cause financial markets to freeze up and ignite an international crisis.
“A debt default would be a cataclysmic event, with an unpredictable but probably dramatic fallout on U.S. and global financial markets,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
The threat has emerged just as the world economy is contending with a panoply of threats — from surging inflation and interest rates to the ongoing repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the tightening grip of authoritarian regimes.
On top of all that, many countries have grown skeptical of America’s outsize role in global finance.
In the past, American political leaders generally managed to step away from the brink and raise the debt limit before it was too late.
Congress has raised, revised or extended the borrowing cap 78 times since 1960, most recently in 2021.
U.S. debt ceiling talks at an impasse
Weekend discussions between Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and U.S. President Joe Biden failed to reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling, which some say is necessary to avoid a recession.
So what’s different this time?
The problem has worsened. Partisan divisions in Congress have widened while the debt has grown after years of rising spending and deep tax cuts. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the government could default as soon as June 1 if lawmakers don’t raise or suspend the ceiling.
“If the trustworthiness of [Treasurys] would become impaired for any reason, it would send shock waves through the system … and have immense consequences for global growth,” said Maurice Obstfeld, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.
Treasurys are widely used as collateral for loans, as a buffer against bank losses, as a haven in times of high uncertainty and as a place for central banks to park foreign exchange reserves.
Given their perceived safety, the U.S. government’s debts — Treasury bills, bonds and notes — carry a risk weighting of zero in international bank regulations. Foreign governments and private investors hold nearly $7.6 trillion US of the debt — roughly 31 per cent of the Treasurys in financial markets.
Because the U.S. dollar’s dominance has made it the de facto global currency since World War II, it’s relatively easy for the United States to borrow and finance an ever-growing pile of government debt.
The U.S. dollar remains strong around the world, and would continue to dominate despite a default, say economists. (Matt Slocum/The Associated Press)
Demand for the dollar
But high demand for U.S. dollars also tends to make them more valuable than other currencies, and that imposes a cost: A strong dollar makes American goods pricier relative to their foreign rivals, leaving U.S. exporters at a competitive disadvantage. That’s one reason why the United States has run trade deficits every year since 1975.
Of all the foreign exchange reserves held by the world’s central banks, U.S. dollars account for 58 per cent. No. 2 is the euro at 20 per cent. China’s yuan makes up under three per cent, according to the IMF.
Researchers at the Federal Reserve have calculated that from 1999 to 2019, 96 per cent of trade in the Americas was invoiced in U.S. dollars. So was 74 per cent of trade in Asia. Elsewhere outside of Europe, where the euro dominates, dollars accounted for 79 per cent of trade.
So reliable is America’s currency that merchants in some unstable economies demand payment in dollars, instead of their own country’s currency.
Consider Sri Lanka, battered by inflation and a dizzying drop in the local currency. Earlier this year, shippers refused to release 1,000 containers of urgently needed food unless they were paid in dollars. The shipments piled up at the docks in Colombo because the importers weren’t able to obtain dollars to pay the suppliers.
“Without [U.S. dollars], we can’t do any transaction,” said Nihal Seneviratne, a spokesman for Essential Food Importers and Traders Association. “When we import, we have to use hard currency — mostly the U.S. dollars.”
Likewise, many shops and restaurants in Lebanon, where inflation has raged and the currency has plunged, are demanding payment in dollars. In 2000, Ecuador responded to an economic crisis by replacing its own currency, the sucre, with dollars — a process called “dollarization” — and has stuck with it.
A general view of Hamra Street, in Beirut. Shops and restaurants in Lebanon regularly demand payment in U.S. dollars. (Hussein Malla/The Associated Press)
If the United States were to pierce the debt limit without resolving the dispute and the Treasury defaulted on its payments, Zandi suggests that the dollar will rise, at least initially, “because of the uncertainty and the fear. Global investors just wouldn’t know where to go except to where they always go when there’s a crisis and that’s to the United States.”
But the Treasury market would likely be paralyzed. Investors might shift money instead into U.S. money market funds or the bonds of top-flight U.S. corporations. Eventually, Zandi says, growing doubts would shrink the dollar’s value and keep it down.
Who would — and wouldn’t — get paid
In a debt-ceiling crisis, Lowery, who was an assistant Treasury secretary during the 2008 crisis, imagines that the United States would continue to make interest payments to bondholders. And it would try to pay its other obligations — to contractors and retirees, for example — in the order that those bills became due and as money became available.
For bills that were due on June 3, for example, the government might pay on June 5. A bit of relief would come around June 15. That’s when government revenue would pour in in as many taxpayers make estimated tax payments for the second quarter.
The government would likely be sued by those who weren’t getting paid — “anybody who lives off veterans’ benefits or Social Security,” Lowery said. And ratings agencies would likely downgrade U.S. debt, even if the Treasury continued to pay interest to bondholders.
The debt ceiling drama is sure to heighten questions about the enormous financial power of the United States and the dollar.
“The global economy is in a pretty fragile place right now,” Obstfeld said. “So throwing into that mix a crisis over the creditworthiness of U.S. obligations is incredibly irresponsible.”
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
