The June 4 Financial Times ran a major article under the headline “Trump’s empire of debt. This century the US has embarked on wars of choice and borrowed more to pay for them. That might not end well.” The article makes an argument very similar to that of the Council of Foreign Relations from earlier in the week—in this case focusing on the war-driven blowout of the U.S., but not even mentioning European rearmament.
The article begins by asking: “Is the US finally about to fall victim to imperial overstretch?” It notes the imperial “habit, picked up by the US this century, of borrowing from tomorrow to pay for wars today,” and points to the fact that “President Donald Trump has submitted to Congress a national defense budget request for 2027 of an astonishing $1.5tn, double the figure for 2020” as an indication of the problem.
This has contributed to weakening the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, because it has generated a debt bubble that cannot be paid.
