{"id":533942,"date":"2026-03-20T02:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/533942\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T02:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:43:14","slug":"living-on-borrowed-time-national-debts-at-39-trillion-a-top-diplomat-warns-of-a-crisis-ahead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/533942\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Living on borrowed time’: National debt’s at $39 trillion, a top diplomat warns of a crisis ahead"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States national debt crossed $39 trillion<\/a> for the first time this week, arriving at the grim milestone less than five months after it hit $38 trillion \u2014 a pace of accumulation that budget watchdogs are now calling, with unusual unanimity, \u201cunsustainable.\u201d At Fortune\u2018s CEO Initiative dinner in New York on Wednesday night, one of America\u2019s most respected foreign policy voices put the moment in stark terms: the debt isn\u2019t just a balance sheet problem. It\u2019s a threat to American power itself.<\/p>\n

Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations after leading the organization for 20 years, and a senior State Department official under multiple administrations, pointed to his own thought leadership on the subject. Haass and\u00a0Carolyn Kissane<\/a> co-authored a\u00a0paper for the Peter G. Peterson Foundation<\/a>, warning about the national security implications of the ever-expanding debt. At the time, he told Fortune\u2018s Eva Roytburg<\/a> that he felt \u201ca little bit like Paul Revere,\u201d but instead of the British coming, the crisis is coming. \u201cIt\u2019s a slow-motion crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday night, Haass told Fortune\u2018s Diane Brady that the angst over the national debt is massive but distant at the same time. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things that\u2019s almost like the old law: It\u2019s fine until the day it\u2019s not. So I think we\u2019re living on borrowed time.\u201d\u200b<\/p>\n

He was careful to hedge on timing \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m just not smart enough to know whether it\u2019s a month from now, a year from now, five years from now\u201d \u2014 but his broader alarm was unambiguous. \u201cI do think we\u2019re eroding confidence in American competence and leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Debt Clock That Doesn\u2019t Stop<\/p>\n

The numbers behind Haass\u2019 concern are hard to dismiss. The Congressional Budget Office projects<\/a> the federal deficit will reach $1.9 trillion in fiscal year 2026 and balloon to $3.1 trillion by 2036. Debt held by the public \u2014 now at $31.3 trillion \u2014 is on a path to hit 120% of GDP within a decade, eclipsing the previous all-time record set just after World War II. The Peterson Foundation projects the debt will cross $40 trillion before this fall\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most striking is what it costs just to carry the load. Net interest payments on the national debt have already exceeded<\/a> $1 trillion in fiscal year 2026 \u2014 nearly triple the $345 billion paid in 2020 \u2014 and have surpassed defense spending in the first three months of the fiscal year alone. \u201cInterest is the fastest-growing \u2018program\u2019 in the federal budget,\u201d Michael A. Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, previously told Fortune.<\/p>\n

At the Fortune CEOi dinner, a CEO in attendance escalated the alarm further, noting that the $39 trillion gross figure masks an even more staggering liability. When unfunded entitlements in Social Security, Medicare, and other long-term obligations are factored in, the true fiscal gap approaches $100 trillion \u2014 a figure consistent with analysis from Penn Wharton Budget Model director Kent Smetters, one of America\u2019s foremost fiscal economists. \u201cIf you actually nominalize that and put that debt to GDP, it\u2019s 200% over,\u201d the CEO said. \u201cThat\u2019s a disaster.\u201d <\/p>\n

Smetters has previously estimated that<\/a>, without major policy changes, U.S. Treasury debt could become unable to roll over its accumulated obligations within roughly 20 years.\u200b<\/p>\n

Haass\u2019 warning: A national security lens<\/p>\n

What sets Haass\u2019 framing apart from standard fiscal hawkery is his insistence that the debt\u2019s most dangerous consequence may not be economic at all \u2014 it\u2019s strategic. His concern is the moment when the debt forces the hand of whoever runs the Federal Reserve next. \u201cSome successor to Jay Powell is going to have to raise rates not to cool down an overheated economy, but because a Treasury auction is not going to go the right way,\u201d he warned. At that point, the policy choices available to the United States become far less attractive than they are today.\u200b<\/p>\n

He was equally pointed about the politics. When this editor, who was in attendance, noted that Fortune\u2018s readers seem to have an especial concern with the debt story, Haass pushed back \u2014 not on the concern, but on whether the obsession has ever translated into meaningful political action. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople say they\u2019re obsessed with it, and their political behavior in no way reflects concerns about the debt,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

This gap between stated anxiety and electoral behavior, Haass argued, is precisely what has allowed the problem to fester. Haass didn\u2019t note the particular context of the milestone arriving roughly two weeks before the ten-year anniversary of President Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign promise to eliminate the national debt within eight years; instead, the gross debt has roughly doubled from $19.9 trillion since then, including growth under the four years of President Joe Biden.\u200b<\/p>\n

The Counterargument: Symptom, Not Disease<\/p>\n

Not everyone views the $39 trillion number with equal dread. Smetters himself noted that the gross debt figure has limited economic meaning \u2014 it includes intragovernmental obligations like the Social Security trust fund, essentially \u201cthe left hand of government owing the right hand.\u201d The more meaningful number, debt held by the public, is $31.3 trillion. Still, Smetters told Fortune, \u201cthe fact that debt held by the public has now exceeded $31 trillion is not great.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deeper critique of the alarmist framing is structural: the United States issues debt in its own currency, and remains the world\u2019s reserve currency issuer. When global investors panic, they still run\u00a0to\u00a0Treasuries, not away from them. Japan has run a debt-to-GDP ratio above 200% for years without the bond market collapse its critics have long predicted. Earlier in his interview with Brady, Haass highlighted the prime minister of Japan, Sanae Takaichi, as \u201cone of the two or three most capable leaders in the world right now.\u201d Saying that Japan has been \u201cthinking hard about how it adapts to its changing demography,\u201d he called it a really good example of leadership. The implication is that the United States offers a contrasting negative example.<\/p>\n

The relevant question isn\u2019t the size of the debt, but what conditions could finally break investor confidence \u2014 and those conditions have as much to do with governance and geopolitical credibility as with any balance sheet figure.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the thread that ties Haass\u2019 national security argument back to fiscal reality. The erosion of institutional expertise in Washington, the retreat from global engagement, the dysfunction that Haass himself catalogued at length on Wednesday night \u2014 these, he suggested, may be accelerating the debt\u2019s timeline from manageable problem to genuine crisis. The debt is the symptom. The disease is political dysfunction. And right now, nobody in Washington is seriously treating either.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point,\u201d Haass said, \u201cthe chickens come home to roost.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States national debt crossed $39 trillion for the first time this week, arriving at the grim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,2928,239739],"class_list":["post-533942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-national-debt","tag-the-ceo-initiative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}