The U.S. government's outstanding national debt has surpassed $30 trillion for the first time, doubling since 2018

The scale of government debt in the United States, existing in the form of national debt, has surpassed $30 trillion for the first time, more than doubling since 2018, with the consequences of massive borrowing during the pandemic now becoming apparent.

According to data released on Thursday, the total amount of short-term Treasury bills, medium-term Treasury bonds, and long-term Treasury bonds increased by about 0.7% in November, reaching $30.2 trillion. The debt servicing cost has reached $1.2 trillion. The surge in borrowing in 2020 to address pandemic-related expenditures, combined with the current higher borrowing rates, has significantly increased the cost of interest payments on U.S. government debt. Interest payments are taking up an increasingly larger share of the federal budget deficit.

Treasury securities are the largest component of the national debt. As of November, the total scale of the national debt was $38.4 trillion, which also includes debts owed to the Social Security Trust Fund and holders of savings bonds. The current statutory debt ceiling is $41.1 trillion, which applies to the total federal debt.

Guneet Dhingra, head of U.S. interest rate strategy at BNP Paribas, stated:

The gap between U.S. government spending and revenue has been persistent, which is the fundamental reason for the continuous rise in the debt burden over the past two decades. This trend has been further amplified after the COVID-19 pandemic, as a large amount of debt was borrowed at higher interest rates, making interest costs themselves a significant factor exacerbating U.S. fiscal pressure.

According to data from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the U.S. borrowed $4.3 trillion through the issuance of Treasury securities in 2020, with that year's fiscal deficit exceeding $3 trillion. Although the deficit has narrowed since then, recently dropping to about $1.78 trillion for the fiscal year 2025, largely due to tariff revenues from increased tariffs on several imported goods this year, debt interest payments still amount to $1.2 trillion.

Jason Williams, an interest rate strategist at Citigroup, stated:

The real biggest challenge is the interest payments. Even if tariff revenues reach $300 billion to $400 billion, it is still less than what we pay in interest on existing debt. We are now like being stuck in quicksand; we can't climb out just relying on tariffs. We are just sinking a little slower, but we are still sinking.

Despite the overall stability in the scale of auctions for U.S. medium- and long-term Treasury bonds over the past two years, and no expected changes in the coming quarters, U.S. Treasury officials stated last month that they have begun to "consider the possibility of further expanding the issuance scale in the future."