Bessent Acknowledges The World Is ‘Awash In Debt,’ Claims Only Way Past Is ‘To Grow Our Way Out’

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the world is "awash in debt" and economies need to "grow their way out" of the issue.

"Our goal here today is to reiterate that our message of growth. The world is awash in debt post [global financial crisis], post Covid, and the only way for us to get out of this is to grow our way out of this, Bessent said during the G20 Summit in Asheville, North Carolina. "I'm confident that a lot of the leaders are very receptive to this," he added.

Bessent went on to blame the Biden administration for the current situation, claiming "I say sometimes that I feel like an emergency room doctor, and the economy is the patient, and the American people were backed over by the Biden Mack truck."

"We have stabilized the patient, and now we're in the healing portion, and real incomes are increasing," he said.

Elsewhere in the summit, Bessent claimed that G20 participants "identified several impediments" to growth, including "excessive regulatory and administrative burdens, poorly designed financial incentives and tax systems, insufficient public and private investment, internal market fragmentation and gaps in workforce skills and mobility." He then claimed that the U.S. is "setting the pace in addressing each of these policy failures."

The issue of debt went back to the forefront of the conversation this month after the U.S. national debt passed $40 trillion.

At third of the increase during the past decade took place during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations borrowed heavily to keep the economy afloat.

Annual interest payments on the national debt are projected to exceed $1 trillion this year, according to the CBO, putting them roughly on par with the size of the Pentagon's budget.

Interest expenses already consume about 19% of federal revenue, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. That share is projected to rise to 26% by 2036 if current trends continue. The faster pace of borrowing is also bringing Washington closer to another politically explosive debt ceiling fight. Congress raised the legal borrowing limit to $41.1 trillion last year.

Preliminary projections from the Bipartisan Policy Center indicate the government could reach that limit between late winter and midsummer 2027, with the latest borrowing figures pushing expectations toward the earlier part of that range.