Is the World Giving Up on the US Dollar? | The Global Story

Sep 2, 2026 | America’s national debt recently hit a new milestone of $40 trillion. It is estimated that interest payments on the national debt are now the second largest expense in the US government budget, trailing only Social Security. How was the US able to borrow so much and for so long? One answer according Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff is the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency.

In this episode, Rogoff - former Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund - explains how the US dollar came to enjoy this hegemonic status, what being the world’s reserve currency actually means in practice, and why he believes the dollar is now in decline.

Democracy Now! US Empire in Decline: Richard Wolff on Iran War, Rising Inequality, $40 Trillion National Debt & More

Sep 2, 2026 | We speak to Richard Wolff, a prominent Marxist economist, about the economic fallout from the war on Iran, which recently reached the six-month mark.

"Because it's only been going on for a few months, the impact on the prices we pay is about to unload itself," says Wolff. The US national debt, which recently topped $40 trillion, is "one of the many signs of an economy and of an empire that is now in decline," says Wolff. "

There is an enormous increase in defense spending, or now war spending, that is scheduled, and no comparable increase in revenue."

Wolff also discusses how a global sell-off of US government bonds means increasing borrowing costs for everyday consumers.


Democracy Now! can be supported here »

$40 Trillion 'Time Bomb’': Is Trump about to Break the Global Economy?

Aug 21, 2026 | Is Donald Trump driving the world economy off a cliff while you’re on your summer holiday?

America has just passed $40 trillion of debt. Trump’s tariffs are pushing up prices, his tax cuts are adding to the deficit, and his war with Iran has sent oil prices soaring. Now bond markets are turning on him. The US treasury has tried to step in and calm the bond markets, but it doesn’t appear to have worked. So what exactly is going on?

Is this just a wobble in the bond markets - or a sign of something much worse to come?

On this episode of The Fourcast, Ciaran Jenkins is joined by Pippa Malmgren, who served as an economic adviser to President George W. Bush, and The Economist’s economics editor Archie Hall.

Trump Has Put the US In a ‘Vicious Cycle’ as Debt Hits $40 Trillion

Aug 21, 2026 | “The deficit is only likely to increase.”

Republicans are “squealing” about America’s debt, which has just hit $40 trillion, but nobody in MAGA wants to “stand up to Trump” and do something about it, says director of the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting, Sarah Baxter.

U.S. Debt Hits $40 Trillion as America’s Borrowing Binge Continues

THE NEW YORK TIMES: President Trump’s promises to restore fiscal order and reduce the amount of America’s debt burden have been undercut by spending on the Iran war, tax cuts and tariff refunds.

America’s gross national debt topped $40 trillion for the first time on Wednesday, an ominous milestone for an economy that sits on a shaky fiscal foundation after decades of borrowing to pay for the rising costs of the military, social safety net programs and President Trump’s tax cuts.

This year alone, the United States is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay for its obligations, including spending on the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025. Soaring interest payments to investors who have purchased America’s debt now make up about half of that red ink, pushing the United States into a deeper financial hole.

Whether the mounting debt load is a problem to be solved or a function of America’s economic strength remains a matter of debate. Deficits are also a point of political gamesmanship, with Republicans most passionate about eliminating them when they are out of power.

“The scariest thing about this is how we’re starting to see the debt spiral begin,” said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which supports deficit reduction, referring to interest on the debt.

The inability of lawmakers to confront the debt comes with long-term risks. While the United States remains the world’s largest economy, its mounting debt load could lead investors to demand higher interest rates for U.S. bonds or raise questions about the nation’s creditworthiness, which could erode confidence in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. » | Alan Rappeport | Reporting from Washington | Wednesday, August 19, 2026

阅读简体中文版 »

閱讀繁體中文版 »

As U.S. Debt Hits a Worrying Milestone, Washington Barely Notices

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The debt is outgrowing the size of America’s economy. The president’s policies could accelerate the country’s fiscal headaches, experts say, unless policymakers intervene.

The U.S. government learned last week that it may have reached an unfortunate milestone: The size of its debt surpassed the nation’s total economic output.

It was a striking imbalance, according to early estimates, one that the country has experienced only in rare circumstances — briefly during the pandemic, and in the aftermath of World War II. But the development barely seemed to register in the nation’s capital, where few policymakers bothered to acknowledge the latest warning sign about the government’s poor fiscal health.

The root of the problem is well-documented and widely known. U.S. debt has soared in recent years because of a mismatch between federal spending and tax revenue, one complicated by a rapidly aging population, which has driven up costs across government.

For economists, the fear is that these conditions are inching the United States toward a fiscal crisis, one in which its debt is so great that the country can’t easily afford to pay the rising interest on it. But their warnings have long gone unheeded in Washington, calcifying the strains on the government’s balance sheet in ways that President Trump’s agenda is expected to exacerbate. » | Tony Romm | Reporting from Washington | Thursday, May 7, 2026

Democrats Say Bush Is to Blame for Obama's Failures

What will be President Obama's legacy? Reaction on 'Fox & Friends'

Obama Warns of New Financial Crisis If US Defaults on Debt
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: America risks unravelling the world's financial system should the country fail to increase its legal borrowing limits, President Barack Obama has warned.

The warning from The White House comes as the US moves ever closer to a $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, which Congress needs to increase in a matter of weeks to prevent the government defaulting on its borrowings for the first time in history.

Given US government debt, or Treasuries as they are known, are considered the safest asset in financial markets and held by investors and central banks around the world, few want to imagine the consequences of a default.

"If investors around the world thought that the full faith and credit of the United States was not being backed up, if they thought that we might renege on our IOU's, it could unravel the entire financial system," President Obama said at a town hall meeting late yesterday.

"We could have a worse recession than we already had [have], a worse financial crisis than we already had [have]."

The US Treasury has projected that the debt limit will be reached this month, though Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, has said he can juggle accounts until early August to avoid a default. » | Richard Blackden, US Business Editor | Monday, May 16, 2011

My comment:

I find it rather interesting, yet very disturbing, troubling, that this president warns that the world’s financial system will be in trouble if the US doesn’t increase its legal borrowing limits. How perverse is that? That’s like a householder being in deep debt and coming to the end of his credit limit; but instead of paying off the debt, he goes to the bank manager to cajole him into increasing his credit limit to avert the crisis. That way he gets deeper into debt! Where the hell did this guy Obama learn his economics? Which Ivy League university was that now? As all sane, sensible people know, what he needs to do is start paying off the nation’s debts. America needs to learn to live within its means. That way the US will distance itself from its borrowing limits. Living within one’s means is sound economics. It was ever thus. – © Mark

This comment also appears here

Freedom Watch: Rising Awareness On Rising Debt

Tea Party Express Hits the Road in Protest at Obama Healthcare Plans
TIMES ONLINE: On a warm, wet night in Michigan, Jan Crandall stands to attention while Taps is played on the sound system in honour of America’s war dead. Then she explains why she is carrying a placard bearing an astonishingly large number: $11,801,149,166,949.

It is the US national debt — and it is rising by $3.5 billion a day. “We came out tonight because of the excessive spending,” she said. “We don’t like the Government trying to take over everything. We are for healthcare reform, but they are not going about it the right way.” After a pause Mrs Crandall added: “Gee, are we going to talk about Barack Obama? We might get on his hit list.”

A powerful cocktail of hard-headed conservatism and wilful paranoia is driving a quixotic bus convoy from California to Washington, where Mr Obama will try tonight to rebut its claims and regain the initiative in the most important domestic policy speech of his presidency so far.

The Tea Party Express has no leader, no big donors and no formal goal except to “take back our country” from an Administration it believes has fundamentally misunderstood the role of America’s federal Government — and from Republicans who abandoned fiscal restraint to bail out the country’s banks last year.

The convoy consists of two 12-berth coaches built for rock band roadies and a permanent crew of two singers, two speakers and a supporting cast of mild-mannered political consultants from California. It would be no more than a fringe attraction had its members not already wrong-footed the White House in the health reform debate with talking points for hundreds of Republican town hall meetings over the summer. One of the brains behind the movement is Sal Russo, of Russo, Marsh and Associates, a Sacramento campaigning firm, formerly an adviser to Ronald Reagan and Rudy Giuliani.

The Tea Party people are now targeting congressional districts won last year by Democrats that they think can be won back in next year’s midterm elections. The coaches have stopped for four rallies in Michigan in the past two days, including one attended by Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — known to followers of John McCain’s presidential campaign as Joe the Plumber. Yesterday he railed against big government at a meeting in Brighton, and signed copies of his new book, Fighting for the American Dream.

Mr Obama’s version of that dream has always included universal healthcare. His speech tonight to both houses of Congress will be a “very forceful” argument for wholesale reform, aides said, and a reply to a misinformation campaign by opponents that has encouraged conspiracy theories about state-run “death panels” and “population control experiments”.

The President’s problem is that no US legislation this ambitious has ever been passed with a majority of Americans opposed to it. A Gallup poll yesterday showed that only 37 per cent of voters back the Bill now being worked on by the Senate Finance Committee.

Tonight’s speech will, therefore, stop short of demanding the public insurance plan — the “public option” — even though Mr Obama still supports the idea and even though it is considered non-negotiable by about 40 liberal Democrats in the House. >>> Giles Whittell in Jackson, Michigan | Wednesday, September 09, 2009