US debt tops $40 trillion - $20 trillion since Trump first took office

The US national debt has crossed the $40 trillion mark for the first time, according to Treasury data showed on Wednesday. The milestone comes as rising spending on defence, Social Security and Medicare, alongside mounting interest payments, pushes federal borrowing to a record level.The latest milestone comes as the pace of borrowing outstrips earlier forecasts, with longer-term obligations for healthcare and retirement benefits continuing to grow.The debt stood at $40.047 trillion on Tuesday, including $32.266 trillion held by the public and $7.782 trillion in intragovernmental holdings, according to Treasury data.This came less than five months after the debt crossed $39 trillion. It has more than doubled from $19.95 trillion when Donald Trump first took office in January 2017.Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, told AP that the Trump 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.”According to news agency Reuters, the US budget deficit in the first 10 months of fiscal 2026 has already surpassed the full-year deficit recorded in fiscal 2025, with two months still remaining in the current fiscal year.But fiscal watchdogs warned that rising interest costs and spending on programmes including Social Security and Medicare are putting increasing pressure on the federal budget.“Forty trillion dollars of debt doesn’t exist solely on the government’s ledgers; it is felt throughout the economy and finds its way to the pocketbooks of people one way or another,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget told Reuters.Additionally, Trump’s second-term legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is expected to add another $4.7 trillion to the US debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan fiscal agency that provides budget analysis to Congress.The debt has risen sharply across successive administrations, with pandemic spending under Trump and former president Joe Biden accounting for a substantial portion of the increase. Public debt rose by $7.8 trillion during Trump’s first term and by $8.4 trillion during Biden’s presidency, according to the figures cited by Reuters.Interest costs have also become a major budget burden. In the first 10 months of fiscal 2026, interest payments surpassed Medicare spending to become the second-largest federal expenditure after Social Security.The Bipartisan policy center estimates that the US could reach its $41.1 trillion debt limit between late winter and mid-summer 2027, potentially forcing Congress to revisit the borrowing cap.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.