US National Debt Surges Past $38 Trillion as Fiscal Alarm Bells Ring Louder

The United States has crossed another fiscal red line: national debt has now exceeded $38 trillion, just two months after hitting $37 trillion, the fastest pace of debt accumulation in the country’s history.

According to the latest Treasury report, the national debt stood at $38,019,813,000,000 as of Tuesday, equal to roughly $111,000 per American. The figure is now comparable to the combined size of the economies of China, India, Japan, Germany, and the UK, underscoring the scale of America’s borrowing binge.

The debt ballooned under a combination of pandemic-era spending, tax cuts, and growing interest payments on existing obligations. Economists warn that the trend is spiraling toward a point where markets could begin to lose confidence in US creditworthiness.

Credit agencies are already sounding alarms. Moody’s downgraded the US government’s credit rating in May, citing “chronic political dysfunction” and a failure to control deficits, following earlier downgrades by Fitch and Standard & Poor’s.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects the debt could reach 200 percent of GDP by 2047, partly driven by President Donald Trump’s sweeping One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cemented tax cuts while expanding spending.