Russian tycoon questions US ability to pay debt
The US government is facing increasing challenges to even service the interest on the nation’s ballooning debt, Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska claimed on Friday.
Having hit another record high in mid-September, US debt stands at over $33 trillion. It spiked by $275 billion in a single day in October. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), US government debt is expected to increase from 123.3% of GDP in 2023 to 137.5% by 2028.
“Some officials in Washington, who apparently worked hard to come up with all sorts of sanctions, are now thinking about the high cost of (servicing) American debt, which is already more than $33 trillion. And they blame this on the not-so-transparent mechanism for placing and trading US bonds,” Deripaska, who has been sanctioned by the US, wrote on his Telegram channel.
The billionaire went on to point out that even if the transparency of the US Treasury market is improved fivefold, it is still unclear how the debt is going to be repaid.
He asked how Washington would pay the interest in two or three years, if it already has to pay off more than a trillion dollars annually. “This is the largest expenditure of the US government budget, which will be executed with a colossal 8% deficit this year and next,” wrote the founder of Rusal, the world’s second-largest aluminum company.
The growing US debt burden may guarantee a decline in interest among government officials in military spending, Deripaska concluded.
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