In confirming Tuesday that Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew is in touch with European leaders "with some regularity" on the Greek debt crisis, White House press secretary Josh Earnest also told Newsmax that "ultimately, it will be the responsibility of Greece" and its international creditors "for resolving these difficulties."
Newsmax's question as to how closely the administration is involved with Greece came on the same day that the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met its latest installment of 750 million euros to repay the International Monetary Fund.
However, in meeting its deadline, Tsipras' government, as the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, "took the unusual step of raiding its holdings of the [IMF’s] de facto currency to make its ... payment to the Fund yesterday, another sign of the country’s ever-desperate cash crunch."
To fully repay its 5-year-old, 240 billion euro loan to three institutions (the IMF, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank), Greece faces several more payments in the next few months.
Failure to meet them has "raised the specter of a Greek default and exit from the Eurozone," according to the FT.
Given these circumstances, Newsmax asked at the White House conference if the president was in regular consultation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and with Tsipras.
"The president is not," Earnest told us. "But the Treasury secretary, Jack Lew, has been engaged with his counterparts and with some European leaders on this issue with some regularity. This is the way the United States facilitated previous rounds of this financial difficulty."
He added that among those leaders Lew has been engaged with is Tsipras himself.
The president’s top spokesman reminded us that "we are obviously aware of the significant economic consequences of Greece being able to meet its financial obligations and continue to be part of the currency union in Europe."
But Earnest also made clear the administration felt it was up to Greece and its creditors to resolve the debt situation among themselves.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax.
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