“We are becoming a country that is so rich, so powerful,” he stated. “With the kind of growth we have now, the debt is very low relatively speaking. You grow yourself out of that debt.”
Actual GDP rose at a strong 3.8% annualized tempo in Q2 2025, however the debt image isn’t “very low.” Gross federal debt nonetheless sits round $37.4 trillion, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is about 100% for 2025, in line with Treasury and CBO-linked dashboards.
Tariff receipts are up sharply this yr, however estimates present roughly $165 billion by August and about $300 billion on an annualized foundation, far in need of the trillion wanted for paying down the debt.
On high of that, Trump additionally prompt the federal government may use tariff income to ship People “distributions” of as much as $2,000, which might go into shoppers’ pockets as an alternative of serving to to offset price range deficits.
However Dalio, who has studied dozens of main debt cycles, wrote in his 2018 e book Ideas for Navigating Huge Debt Crises that in booms, “lending supports spending and investment, which in turn supports incomes and asset prices,” briefly pushing progress “above the consistent productivity growth of the economy.” However that may’t final, he warned — “eventually income will fall below the cost of the loans.”
Elsewhere, he added that debt burdens solely ease when “nominal income growth is higher than nominal interest rates.,” however an excessive amount of stimulus dangers “unacceptable inflation and currency declines.”
The billionaire founding father of Bridgewater Associates has cautioned towards leaders celebrating prosperity as proof that leverage not issues, whilst debt quietly outpaces earnings. To Dalio, that rhetoric is the hallmark of a late-stage debt cycle, earlier than actuality intrudes.
Dalio’s debt-cycle warning
Dalio has spent many years finding out how international locations borrow, growth, after which buckle below the load of their obligations. Trying throughout almost 50 main debt cycles—from the Roaring Twenties to the 2008 disaster—he sees the identical sample of debt fueling progress within the early phases, however finally the debt itself grows quicker than the earnings wanted to service it.
“Typically debt crises occur because debt and debt service costs rise faster than the incomes that are needed to service them,” Dalio wrote. Policymakers can stretch the occasion by reducing charges, however “when that happens, the deleveraging begins.”
The actual hazard, in Dalio’s telling, isn’t simply within the debt itself however the psychology. Bubbles type as a result of rising asset costs and better incomes persuade folks they’re richer than they are surely. They spend extra, borrow extra, and tackle higher dangers.
“In the first stage of the bubble, debts rise faster than incomes…borrowers feel rich, so they spend more than they earn and buy assets at high prices with leverage.”
Within the U.S., debt held by the general public can also be projected to climb from about 100% of the GDP in 2025 to 118% by 2035, in line with CBO forecasts, that means debt is rising quicker than the underlying economic system. In the meantime, CBO says the federal government’s internet curiosity prices additionally will proceed to develop as a share of GDP.
That is the situation Dalio warns of, particularly if curiosity prices exceed progress charges, progress can not carry the debt burden in the way in which that Trump assumes, as a result of progress is susceptible to shifts in charges, inflation, or the financial cycle.
The mathematics downside
To make sure, Dalio’s framework stresses that not all debt is created equal. Borrowing for investments that generate earnings will be self-sustaining. However borrowing to fund consumption or to juice headline progress is just not.
In one of the best case—a “beautiful deleveraging,” as Dalio calls it—governments steadiness fiscal and financial insurance policies in order that progress outpaces curiosity prices, however with out tipping into runaway inflation.
That’s a slender path. An excessive amount of stimulus, and also you spark inflation or foreign money weak point. An excessive amount of austerity, and also you set off a recession. The form of everlasting tax cuts and tariff-driven stimulus Trump is promising doesn’t match simply into that steadiness.
Dalio additionally warned that essentially the most deceptive indicators come close to the highest, the place straightforward credit score boosts spending, asset costs climb, unemployment falls.
Right this moment, asset costs are at or close to report highs (main indexes hit new all-time highs this week) and unemployment stays low at 4.3% as of August.
“When the limits of debt growth relative to income growth are reached,” Dalio wrote, “the process works in reverse…a vicious, self-reinforcing contraction.”
Trump insists that trillions in new funding are flowing in, the commerce deficit is shrinking, and the nation is flush sufficient to contemplate mailing out checks.
“Nobody thought it was possible to do so quickly—except me,” he stated.
However Dalio’s work means that’s precisely the mindset that will get international locations into hassle. Believing that debt doesn’t matter as a result of progress will maintain it’s the final stage of the cycle, when optimism runs forward of actuality. And when the phantasm breaks, the “beautiful” a part of deleveraging hardly ever lasts.
As Dalio put it: “When promises to deliver money (i.e., debt) can’t rise any more relative to the money and credit coming in, the process works in reverse and deleveraging begins.”
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