US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen in a letter sent to congressional leaders on Friday afternoon said her agency would need to start taking “extraordinary measures” or special accounting maneuvers intended to prevent the nation from hitting the debt ceiling as early as Jan. 14.
“Treasury expects to hit the statutory debt ceiling between January 14 and January 23,” Yellen wrote in a letter addressed to US House and Senate leadership, at which point extraordinary measures would be used to prevent the government from breaching the nation’s debt ceiling — which has been suspended until Wednesday.
The department has in the past deployed what are known as “extraordinary measures” or accounting maneuvers to keep the government operating. However, once those measures run out, the government risks defaulting on its debt unless lawmakers and the president agree to lift the limit on the US government’s ability to borrow.
Photo: Reuters
“I respectfully urge Congress to act to protect the full faith and credit of the United States,” she said.
The news comes after US President Joe Biden signed a bill into law last week that averted a government shutdown, but did not include US president-elect Donald Trump’s demand to raise or suspend the nation’s debt limit. The bill was approved by Congress only after fierce internal debate among Republicans over how to handle Trump’s demand.
“Anything else is a betrayal of our country,” Trump said in a statement.
After a protracted debate in the summer of last year over how to fund the government, policymakers crafted the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which included suspending the nation’s US$31.4 trillion borrowing authority until Jan. 1, 2025.
The US federal debt stands at roughly US$36 trillion — which ballooned across Republican and Democratic administrations. The spike in inflation after the COVID-19 pandemic pushed up government borrowing costs such that debt service next year would exceed spending on national security.
Republicans, who would have full control of the White House, House and Senate in the new year, have big plans to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and other priorities, but debate over how to pay for them.
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
Germany is to establish its first-ever national pavilion at Semicon Taiwan, which starts tomorrow in Taipei, as the country looks to raise its profile and deepen semiconductor ties with Taiwan as global chip demand accelerates. Martin Mayer, a semiconductor investment expert at Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), Germany’s international economic promotion agency, said before leaving for Taiwan that the nation is a crucial partner in developing Germany’s semiconductor ecosystem. Germany’s debut at the international semiconductor exhibition in Taipei aims to “show presence” and signal its commitment to semiconductors, while building trust with Taiwanese companies, government and industry associations, he said. “The best outcome
Semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to double this year, as manufacturers in the industry are keen to expand production to meet strong global demand for artificial intelligence applications, according to SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain. Speaking at a news conference before the opening of Semicon Taiwan trade show tomorrow, SEMI director of industry research and statistics Clark Tseng (曾瑞榆) said semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to grow by an annual 100 percent this year, beating an earlier estimate of 70 percent growth. He said that Taiwan received a boost from a
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