Obama forced to cancel part of his trip to Asia

The US government shutdown forced President Barack Obama to cancel two stops on a long-planned trip to Asia and left federal services in limbo across the country yesterday.自存倉Lawmakers from both parties suggested the impasse could last for weeks and encompass a potentially more dangerous fight over the country’s borrowing limit.Funding for much of the government was cut off on Tuesday after a Republican effort to thwart Obama’s health care law stalled a short-term, normally routine spending bill. Republicans pivoted to a strategy to try to reopen the government piecemeal but were unable to immediately advance the idea in the House of Representatives.Nearly a third of the federal workforce — some 800,000 employees — was forced off the job, closing down services from informational websites to national parks. People classified as essential employees — such as air traffic controllers, Border Patrol agents and most food inspectors — continued to work.The increasingly entrenched standoff — and concerns of a looming debt limit crisis — rattled stock markets that had largely shrugged off the shutdown on its first day. Stock indexes fell in Germany and France, while Wall Street headed for a lower opening, with stock futures falling sharply.Obama, who is due to leamini storagee on Saturday night for Asia, called off the final two stops in Malaysia and the Philippines. He will still travel to Indonesia and Brunei.National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said that since Malaysia and the Philippines were “on the back end of the president’s upcoming trip, our personnel was not yet in place and we were not able to go forward with planning.”Hayden added: “This completely avoidable shutdown is setting back our ability to promote US exports and advance US leadership in the largest emerging region in the world.”Republican leaders faulted the Democratic-led Senate for killing a request from the Republican-controlled House to open official negotiations on the temporary spending bill. Senate Democrats insist Republicans give in and pass their funding bill.Obama was planning to host chief executives of the nation’s 19 largest financial firms yesterday, trying to highlight big business opposition to the shutdown.The US Chamber of Commerce had sent a letter to Congress urging no shutdown and warning against a debt ceiling crisis they say could lead to an economically disastrous default.There were suggestions from leaders in both parties that the shutdown could last for weeks and grow to encompass a measure to increase the debt limit. 儲存