WASHINGTON, D.C. — White House officials and congressional leaders are in the final stages of negotiating a deal to lift the nation’s debt limit and permanently end substantial annual spending cuts mandated under a 2011 budget law, a potentially hefty agreement they hope to enact before the end of the month.

The deal, if it moves forward, would prevent the country from defaulting on its debt — calamitous for the financial markets — and raise the nation’s borrowing capacity for about two years.

The plan would also permanently reverse massive, automatic spending cuts to federal programs — known as the sequester — according to congressional sources.

The agreement is not yet final and President Donald Trump has not signed off on it.

The tentative agreement, crafted largely between Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, would mark an about-face from the bipartisan 2011 budget deal, designed to control federal spending by requiring painful cuts for both sides. Ever since, lawmakers in both parties have railed against its sizable yearly cuts to domestic and defense programs.

Conservatives are likely to balk on ending the sequester. The deal could amount to a significant blow to acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who has advocated for limited federal spending since he was in Congress. He has been largely sidelined in the talks by congressional Republicans who don’t like the spending caps.

Mnuchin and Pelosi, D-Calif., have been negotiating a deal for several weeks, with a significant uptick in phone calls in recent days, according to an aide familiar with the conversations.

House leaders are racing to complete the agreement before House members depart Washington at the end of the week until after Labor Day. The Senate is slated to leave a week later.

Talks are currently focused on technical, final details. The last sticking point was how much of the new spending should be offset by cuts. The agreement on the table would be offset by about $75 billion in cuts, according to a congressional aide.

The nation is expected to hit its debt limit — the maximum amount Congress has authorized the country to borrow — as early as the second week of September, according to Mnuchin. That’s just as lawmakers are returning from their August break and not enough time to authorize an extension.

If the deal is not approved by Congress this week, lawmakers have floated the idea of a short-term extension to prevent the country from defaulting on its debt while Congress is away from Washington.

Trump has indicated that he didn’t want to use the debt limit as leverage against congressional Democrats.

“It’s a sacred element of our country,” he said Friday. “We can never play with it.”

However, Trump suggested in 2013 that Republicans use the debt ceiling as political leverage against President Barack Obama.