In racing past the $39 trillion national debt line, the U.S. is now taking on new debt at the rate of over $7 billion per day. This record was confirmed by the March 18 Daily Treasury Statement. At this rate, it will blow past $40 trillion by the end of summer, more than double the level when Trump, back in 2017, promised to eliminate the national debt.
Further, this year will also see the net interest payments, merely to service the debt, surpass the $1 trillion level—almost three times the 2020 level. In the first two-and-a-half months of 2026, the debt service alone amounted to $270 billion. So far this year, that is even higher than military expenditures—although the Trump administration has also made noise about increasing the military budget from close to $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion.
