President Joe Biden on Tuesday has reportedly decided to keep his Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan, following a meeting with other leaders of the Group of Seven nations.
The Associated Press and other outlets reported the decision. Biden is scheduled to address the Afghanistan situation at 4:30 p.m. Eastern.
G-7 leaders were expected to press Biden to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond the Aug. 31 deadline, to allow more time to evacuate those who want to leave.
Biden asked his national security team to create contingency plans in case a situation arose for which the deadline needed to be extended slightly, an administration official said, according to the AP.
A Taliban spokesman said Tuesday that the U.S. must evacuate people from Afghanistan by the 31st, and that the group would accept “no extensions.”
As MarketWatch reports, global financial markets SPX, +0.28% have been largely unmoved by developments in Afghanistan. But the chaotic U.S. exit from the country is heightening underlying geopolitical risks, and, according to some analysts, potentially clouding the outlook for Biden’s legislative agenda.
Read: Investors ignore Afghanistan, but risk levels are on the rise
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The White House said Biden met with G-7 leaders to “discuss continuing our close coordination on Afghanistan policy, humanitarian assistance, and evacuating our citizens, the brave Afghans who stood with us over the last two decades, and other vulnerable Afghans.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.