Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 index fell 1.1% on Tuesday after Speaker Kevin McCarthy of the House of Representatives said, "We're not there yet" on a deal. That followed a meeting Monday with U.S. President Joe Biden that ended with no agreement.
In early trading, London's FTSE 100 sank to 7,649.97. The CAC 40 in Paris retreated to 7,264.36 and the DAX in Frankfurt lost 1.3% to 15,936.54.On Tuesday, the Dow dropped 0.7% and the Nasdaq composite lost 1.3%. Republicans in Washington are pressing for cuts in aid to the poor and other spending in exchange for agreeing to raise the amount the government can borrow. Biden has proposed a mix of cuts and higher taxes on the richest Americans, which McCarthy has rejected.