Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb said Sunday that the U.S. is caught in a debt spiral that is unavoidable, pinning the blame on President Donald Trump and calling it a matter of fiscal incompetence and not partisan politics.
Debt Problem Cuts Across Party Lines
Taleb said on X that Trump has added 42% to the total national debt and roughly 2% to borrowing costs, and he dismissed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s attempts to downplay the problem.
“Trump is behind a debt spiral,” the author of ‘The Black Swan’ said, adding that “the debt spiral is unavoidable.”
He said that the issue was not with being Republican, conservative, or nationalist, but was “just fiscal incompetence.”
Taleb was responding to SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci, who, during his interview with ‘On The Don Lemon Show’ last week, said that a 6% rate on $40 trillion in debt would mean $2.4 trillion in annual interest payments, more than total Social Security disbursements.
Debt, Deficits and Treasury Yields Keep Climbing
The national debt stands at $40.36 trillion, and the federal government ran a deficit of about $2 trillion in fiscal 2026, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Economist Peter Schiff warned that Trump’s proposed $5,000 payments to adults would become the third-largest federal expenditure as interest on the debt surges to the top.
The Federal Reserve raised rates in September for the first time since 2023, and the 10-year Treasury yield ended last week at 5.24%, down from this month’s high of 5.36%.
The 30-year yield fell to 5.60%, and remain near their highest levels in more than two decades.
Bessent Says US Can Grow Out of Debt
Last month, Bessent said that with 3% economic growth, “we grow our way out of this,” and in August, he told CNBC there was “nothing magic about the $40 trillion number.”
Price Action: The iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ:IEF) closed 0.06% lower on Friday at $89.40 and fell 0.02% in extended trading, according to Benzinga Pro. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ:TLT) closed 0.14% higher at $77.98 and fell 0.02% in after hours.
Benzinga Edge rankings indicate the 7-10 year bond ETF has a Momentum score in the 28th percentile, with a negative price trend across the short, medium, and long term.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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