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We'll have the latest from the ongoing G7 summit.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived today to attend the summit in person.

That just as President Biden and other leaders opened the door to providing fighter jets

to Ukraine.

We turn now to NPR White House correspondent Scott Detro, who's in Hiroshima.

Scott, thanks so much for being with us.

How are you?

That's right, it's evening there.

Morning here, my friend.

Volodymyr Zelensky's trip to Japan, brooded about, reported online, but now he's actually

there, I gather.

He arrived today, and this comes right in the middle of an extended charm offensive

from Zelensky, which is coming ahead of what we expect will be a major military offensive

from Ukraine.

Zelensky, remember, had not left the country much for obvious reasons for much of the first

year of the war.

Then he had that dramatic trip to Washington at the end of last year.

And more recently, Zelensky has been visiting heads of government in several countries to

pressure them to keep supporting Ukraine as military costs keep going up and as the war

keeps dragging on.

The trip to the G7 comes immediately after Zelensky made a similar case to the Arab League

in Saudi Arabia the other day.

We do not know much about his exact agenda here in Hiroshima, though the White House

is indicating he will almost certainly have a one-on-one meeting with President Biden

on Sunday.

President Biden now indicates that he would support Ukraine acquiring F-16 fighter jets

from Western countries.

That's a change, isn't it?

this summit.

I mean, look, but on a serious note, this is a huge escalation in how the U.S. and its

allies are arming Ukraine.

Ukraine had been begging for these jets for more than a year.

Biden resisted.

He was worried that this could be something that would lead Russia to broaden the war

and perhaps retaliate against other countries.

But now, this week, Biden has told other G7 leaders the U.S. will support efforts to train

Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets and begin conversations about how to get F-16s

from other countries to Ukraine.

And at a briefing today, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the U.S. has adjusted

its position based on how Russia has waged its war and how Ukraine has responded.

He also told us that as the U.S. has increased the magnitude of the weapons it's providing,

one key thing has been getting promises from Ukraine that it will not use them to attack

inside Russia.

And he indicated that that promise would be key when it comes to these F-16s.

He apologized to Australia's Prime Minister for having to cancel his planned visit there

next week to get home sooner to deal with whatever's going on.

And again, I truly apologize to you for having you to come here rather than me being in Australia

right now.

But we have a little thing going on at home I've got to pay attention to.

Because in Washington, D.C., negotiations briefly stopped yesterday.

They've resumed.

What's the White House say, Scott?

Right after that brief pause in negotiations, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, look,

there are big differences.

The talks may get difficult, but the White House is confident they can find an agreement.

Then a few hours later, communications director Ben LeVault issued a statement really blasting

House Republicans, implying they are negotiating in bad faith.

And then after that, President Biden was asked about this, and he said he is confident the

U.S. will not default.

And he indicated he thought negotiations were going pretty normally.

I've been in these negotiations before.

to rejoin talks in person.

And one observation I had on this, the White House is doing a very strange dance here of

continuing to insist it is not in negotiations over the debt ceiling, even as it negotiates

over the debt ceiling.

I mean, they're negotiating the budget here.

But if the White House can't strike a deal to get the Republican-controlled House to

raise the debt ceiling, the U.S. will run out of money and default on its debt.

Thanks so much, Scott.

The Toyo Carp lost today, one to nothing.

My favorite team.

Who beat them?

Do you know?

All right.

Thank you.

And of course, it's dominating the news in Washington, D.C., where negotiations are occurring.

could be days away from being unable to pay its bills, threatening the global economy?

For that, we have NPR's David Gurra.

David, welcome.

And my sense is Wall Street has been confident, pretty sanguine, actually, about this.

And it's funny, I said that to Libby Cantrell, who's a managing director at PIMCO, a company

that manages some of the world's largest bond funds.

And Libby corrected me.

She said Wall Street's preferred term is constructive.

Wall Street has been constructive.

This will get resolved without a default.

Like many investors, Cantrell believes that Washington is going to figure this out.

It may go down to the wire, but in the final minutes of the 11th hour, there's going to

be a deal.

Cantrell was a congressional staffer before she got into business, and she says it's in

no politician's interest to bring about a default.

And she's sure everyone who's involved in these negotiations, I assure you, recognizes

it would be a catastrophe if the U.S. were to default on its debt for the first time

in history.

Obviously, that is the worst-case scenario.

How are investors getting ready for that?

Let's underscore that.

But investors and strategists I talked to were all very candid about how much they don't

know about what would happen if the U.S. were to default.

Again, we haven't been here before.

But they're thinking this through, and the uncertainty alone is bound to be a problem.

People would be waiting to see what happens, how this would shake out.

And at the very least, there'd be a big sell-off.

We just can't quantify how big that would be.

Now, if we go back to 2008, when we were on the precipice of the global financial crisis,

and Congress didn't approve a $700 billion rescue package, the stock market had one of

its worst days ever.

Many economists say we'd face another global financial crisis if there were a default,

and a default would have a profound effect on the value of U.S. government bonds, on

U.S. treasuries, which are seen and have been seen as some of the safest investments in

the world.

This is debt held by companies and countries, and treasuries are used as collateral in all

kinds of transactions.

It would cost the U.S. a lot more to sell debt, given investors would want more protection

on what would seem like a riskier bet than before.

This would have ripple effects.

If there's a default, borrowing costs would go up.

And just think about mortgage rates, which already have risen because the Federal Reserve

has hiked interest rates to fight high inflation.

They would climb even higher.

Seema Shah is the chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.

She's watching all of this unfold from London, where she's based.

And she told me this is happening at a really unfortunate time.

Reserve Chair and many other policy analysts and policymakers that a default would kickstart

a recession, and there would be another global financial crisis like the one we saw back

in 2008 and 2009.

at this point, they've seen this show before.

They know that oftentimes Congress just kind of waits to the very last minute and then

And they think that they know how this movie is going to end.

I think that's definitely the case.

So long as the U.S. has this limit on how much it can borrow.

And this week, we did see business leaders get more engaged with this process.

More than 100 executives wrote a letter to President Biden and to congressional leaders

urging them to raise the debt limit, warning them of the consequences of inaction.

The Treasury Secretary met with a couple dozen bank CEOs.

You can be constructive and frustrated, which I think many investors are.

Many of them also are resigned to the fact that this is, for better or worse, how Washington

works today.

And this debate and this threat of default is going to keep cropping up in the future.

described as the most unpredictable in years.

They come three months after the country's deadliest train crash in which 57 people died.

the country's leadership.

Reporter Lydia Imanolidou joins us now from Athens.

Lydia, thanks for being with us.

It sparked huge protests, as you said, especially among young people.

But really, across the board, there was so much outrage among Greeks who blamed the country's

political establishment for the safety failures that led to the accident.

People called on the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, to resign.

He did not.

He's running for re-election.

His conservative New Democracy Party, though, did see its lead in the polls narrow.

And the left-wing opposition party, SYRIZA, which is headed by the former Greek prime

minister, Alexis Tsipras, is trailing only a few points behind.

And then there are some smaller parties on the far right and the far left that have gained

some ground.

This, coupled with new election rules this year, means that there's probably not going

to be an outright winner in this round of elections, as second round is preliminarily

penciled in for July.

The economy is better now.

How much are economic issues at the center of these elections?

according to polls.

Many Greeks are not able to keep up with soaring food costs and with energy bills that skyrocketed

after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

And according to official figures, a good portion of Greeks are at risk of poverty.

Greece's economy, though, has come a long way over the past decade, and the Greek prime

minister can take some credit for that.

He's brought in foreign investment, cut corporate taxes, and we've seen unemployment rates dropping,

GDP growing, and the minimum wage and pensions.

And the prime minister says that if he's reelected, there's more economic growth on the way.

there's also been some backsliding, that there are some issues that threaten the rule of law.

One issue is this long-brewing spying scandal that the prime minister has been at the center of.

He and his government are accused of using spyware to monitor journalists and political opponents.

Also, media freedom in the country has declined, according to monitoring groups.

In fact, the annual index by the nonprofit Reporters Without Borders,

it ranks Greece dead last in the EU for media freedom.

And finally, this administration is accused of illegal and violent returns of migrants

who try to cross into Greece through neighboring Turkey.

The government has long denied so-called pushbacks,

but evidence that they're happening systematically is mounting.

Now, I can't say whether the prime minister's party will lose votes over these issues.

It's possible that the hardline policies at the border, for example,

will actually win over some voters on the right.

But this is the cloud of issues hanging over this election

less than a day before polls open here in Greece.

I'm Scott Simon.

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Nishant Tejia, Rafael Nam, Hadil Al-Shalshi, and Ed McNulty.

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