Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday the administration and congressional leaders are continuing toward resolving an impasse over the debt ceiling and he is confident an agreement will be reached that will ensure the U.S. does not default on its obligations.

“I don’t think the market should be concerned,” he said. “I think everybody is in agreement that we won’t do anything that puts the U.S. government at risk in terms of our issue of defaulting. I think that nobody wants a shutdown in any scenario. So I don’t think the market should be concerned, and we’re working hard. We’ll get there one way or another.”

In what he called his “most conservative” scenario, the U.S. could lose its spending ability by early September. At that point, the Treasury would not be able to make payments on its $22 trillion debt load, a potentially catastrophic event that would ripple through financial and world markets.

Both sides have been negotiating on reaching future spending limits and a longer-term agreement on continuing to allow the government the ability to borrow. There have been some indications that an agreement is near, though CNBC’s Ylan Mui reported earlier that the two sides remain significantly apart. Read more

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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday the administration and congressional leaders are continuing toward resolving an impasse over the debt ceiling and he is confident an agreement will be reached that will ensure the U.S. does not default on its obligations.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday the administration and congressional leaders are continuing toward resolving an impasse over the debt ceiling and he is confident an agreement will be reached that will ensure the U.S. does not default on its obligations.