Washington (AFP)

Negotiations are stalling in Washington on the new plan to help the economy, and Donald Trump stands ready to act with executive orders if disagreement persists, for the millions of Americans threatened with deportation and stricken with unemployment because of the pandemic.

These decrees, "weak and insufficient", according to Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, "would not be effective for the people we all want to help."

Republicans and Democrats agree on the urgency of providing additional financial assistance to the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs, can no longer pay their rent, to small businesses on the verge of bankruptcy, or to schools.

But after more than two weeks of tense negotiations with less than three months of the presidential election, no agreement has yet been reached.

The Democrats have proposed measures to the tune of 3 trillion dollars, against 1,000 billion on the White House side.

Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said she had offered a $ 2 trillion compromise, but Donald Trump's administration refused, she told a press conference on Friday.

"If we could do that, (...) we could meet the needs of the Americans," she added, as a new meeting took place on Friday afternoon.

The negotiations are all the more difficult as the Republicans, in the majority in the Senate, are themselves divided.

In the event of failure, President Donald Trump wants to act without consultation, by decree. He could sign them as early as Friday afternoon or Saturday morning.

The "legal drafting" of the text on wage costs is already "finished", assured his economic advisor Larry Kudlow on Fox Business, without however specifying when it could be signed.

- "Losing momentum" -

"Without additional budget support, the economy as a whole risks losing momentum," Oxford Economics analysts said in a note.

Because the billions of dollars distributed since March have allowed companies to continue paying salaries, or households to continue to consume, preventing businesses from going out of business.

The titanic $ 2.2 trillion plan adopted at the end of March included a moratorium to prevent evictions, and $ 600 a week in aid for the unemployed, in addition to that allocated by states.

These measures came to an end at the end of July, and the unemployed must now tighten their belts. In the United States, unemployment benefits are paid, depending on the state, for a maximum of three to six months, and their amount varies from 235 to 823 dollars per week.

The extension of this aid, which has prevented millions of households from falling into poverty, is not up for debate.

But its amount is one of the big points of disagreement, between Republicans who propose to lower it to 200 dollars, the White House which negotiates 400 dollars, and the Democrats who want to keep 600 dollars.

- Declining unemployment -

The unemployment rate continued to decline in July, to 10.2% from 11.1% in June. It is now a long way from the 14.7% in April, but still well above the 3.5% in February.

About half of those who lost their jobs temporarily at the end of March have been rehired.

But the layoffs in March and April were so massive that the jobs created since May still leave tens of millions of Americans out of work.

"It should not have been so terrible, but Donald Trump failed. It is he who should lose his job," responded on Twitter Joe Biden, his Democratic competitor in the race for the White House.

And the recovery of the world's largest economy, which started beating at the end of spring thanks to an easing of containment measures, took a lead in the wing in June, when the virus took off again a large part of the country.

As a result, the US economy created 1.8 million jobs in July, a very slow pace compared to the 4.8 million jobs recorded in June.

© 2020 AFP