WASHINGTON: The top ‘AAA’ long-term debt rating of the United States will be in danger if lawmakers do not raise borrowing limits in a timely fashion, ratings agency Fitch warned on Wednesday.

Congress faces looming deadlines to approve spending for 2018 and raise legal limits on the amount the United States can borrow in order to meet immediate funding obligations – raising the prospect that the US could default on its sovereign debt for the first time ever and cause havoc on global markets.

The non-partisan Cong­res­­­­­­­­sional Budget Office estimates that the US Treasury has until October before exhausting the “extraordinary measures” it put in place in March, when the US reached its current $19.8 trillion borrowing limit.

Lawmakers return from August recess on September 5, making the window for action even tighter.

“If the debt limit is not raised in a timely manner prior to the so-called ‘x date,’ Fitch would review the US sovereign rating, with potentially negative implications,” the agency said in a statement.

The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s in 2011 downgraded the US debt rating to AA+, a notch below its highest level, following battles among lawmakers over whether to lift the cap on borrowing.

In the event the limit is not raised, prioritising some payments over others, as some have suggested Wash­ington may be forced to do, “may not be compatible with ‘AAA’ status,” Fitch said.

The Trump administration has called on lawmakers to raise the debt limit “as soon as possible.”

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2017