U.S. National Debt Hits a Historical High of $37 trillion Dollars.
In July 2025, the U.S. budget deficit increased by 19% year-over-year, reaching a staggering $291 billion, according to a report by Reuters. This figure surpassed the $246 billion deficit recorded in July 2024.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump pledged to reduce the U.S. public debt. He proposed using tariff revenue as a specific step towards this goal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that the Trump administration was "laser focused" on paying down the national debt with revenue generated from tariffs imposed on imports.
However, no detailed legislative or policy package outlining other targeted fiscal measures or spending cuts proposed by Trump to reduce the public debt was found in the available sources. It is worth noting that during this period, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), signed by Trump, raised the debt ceiling by $5 trillion to prevent default, a move critics argue adds to the debt rather than reduces it.
In early April, President Trump announced plans to use "trillions of dollars" from "reciprocal" tariffs to pay off U.S. debt. However, the U.S. budget deficit for July 2025 was not the lowest since the U.S. public debt exceeded the $35 trillion mark in July of the previous year. Moreover, it was not the lowest since the U.S. public debt exceeded the $36 trillion mark in November 2024.
As of August 11, 2025, the total U.S. public debt stands at $37,004,817,625,842.56. According to a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in 2024, the U.S. ranked second in the per capita public debt ranking of countries.
Each American citizen already owes $103,700 at birth in 2024, an increase of $5,800 from 2023. This substantial debt burden underscores the challenges faced in reducing the U.S. public debt.
In conclusion, while Trump's campaign emphasised increased tariff revenues as a means to reduce U.S. public debt, the actual implementation faced political and operational challenges, and other specific debt reduction proposals from his campaign were not well-documented. The rising budget deficit and mounting public debt continue to be areas of concern for the U.S. economy.
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