WASHINGTON — For the first time, the United States’ gross national debt topped $40 trillion.
According to the Treasury Department, the federal debt hit the milestone on Tuesday, The New York Times reported. The agency’s data on the federal debt is released after a one-day delay, according to CNN.
The precise amount of the nation’s “total public debt outstanding” officially hit $40.047 trillion on Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The previous day’s amount was at $39.987 trillion, according to the newspaper.
The $40 trillion plateau was reached just five months after the U.S. hit a then-record $39 trillion deficit in March, The Associated Press reported.
It reached $38 trillion in October 2025, according to the news organization.
Breaking News: The U.S. national debt hit $40 trillion after decades of borrowing. President Trump has promised to restore fiscal order, yet many of his policies have only exacerbated the debt burden. https://t.co/2CtyNIS3TS
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 19, 2026
This year, the U.S. is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay its debt, including the spending on the war in Iran and tax cuts Congress enacted in 2025, the Times reported.
Interest payments to investors now make up more than half of the nation’s debt, according to the newspaper.
According to The Wall Street Journal, debt is accumulated through annual budget deficits, when the government spends more than it collects in revenue.
In recent years, the deficit has been approximately 6% of gross domestic product (GDP), which is a level normally seen during wars or recessions, the newspaper reported.
The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio is expected to continue climbing, reaching 120% a decade from now and 175% in 30 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Those numbers are based on current law, The Wall Street Journal reported. If more tax breaks -- such as for tips and overtime -- are extended, that percentage could rise even more, according to the newspaper.
“On our current path, we’re going to be at $50 trillion in just six years. If you look backward, we were at $20 trillion less than 10 years ago,” Michael Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a fiscal watchdog group, told CNN. “We’re really putting our economy and our country’s future in jeopardy.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who set a goal of reducing the deficit to 3% of the GDP by 2028, conceded last week that deficits were going in the wrong direction this year, the Times reported.
Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, told The Associated Press that President Donald Trump’s administration “has been focused on slashing waste, fraud, and abuse in federal spending while accelerating economic growth to get America’s debt-to-GDP ratio trending in the right direction.”
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