U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with congressional leaders Friday to discuss what to do about massive spending cuts, the White House said Wednesday.

The meeting will come after Congress has officially missed the deadline for averting the $85 billion US in mandatory cuts, which Canadian exporters fear will hit our economy as well as that of our biggest trading partner.

Obama will meet with the top Democrat and Republican in both the House of Representatives and Senate in the first face-to-face meeting between the president and GOP leaders this year.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell says it's a chance to address ways to reduce government spending. He says Americans won't accept more taxes as part of a deal to avert the cuts.

The cuts in defense spending, unemployment benefits and other programs which would be only the first round of a total of $1.2 trillion due to take effect over the next decade and could slow an already struggling economy.

The spending reductions —referred to as sequestration—could mean, eventually, as many as 750,000 lost jobs.

Among those would be roughly 2,750 inspectors employed by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, something the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters fear could be “immediate and damaging” for cross-border commerce, with longer border delays and lost business opportunities.

The CME expects border wait times could increase by up to five hours at larger ports of entry.

'Not good budgeting practice'

"Canada and the United States enjoy the most integrated economic relationship of any two countries in the world,” CME chief executive Jayson Myers said in a release.

“Every day that passes without an agreement brings us one step closer to an unnecessary crisis —a turning point that will not only affect Canadian companies, but our American business partners as well."

The cutting set to start Friday is "haphazard, and cuts good programs and bad. It's not good budgeting practice," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

But if nothing is done about the long-term budgetary burdens, the U.S. debt will reach $19.9 trillion by 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Efforts to close the budget gap have been stymied by Republicans' refusal to accept new tax increases and Democrats' insistence that any spending cuts be matched by tax increases.

Democrats are also reluctant to shrink spending on popular entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

In August 2011, President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to a setup that was supposed to force a compromise. If they couldn't reach a deal by Jan. 1, 2013 —a deadline later extended to March 1— automatic spending cuts would kick in.

The thinking: The cuts would be so painful to both sides that they'd come to an agreement.

It hasn't worked. The across-the-board cuts look more likely each passing day.

With files from The Associated Press