National Debt

Eric Boehm | 1.20.2026 4:30 PM

When he was running for office in 2016, Donald Trump said he would pay off America's national debt in just eight years.

That, obviously, did not happen. Instead, the national debt has exploded in the decade since Trump made that promise.

But history must have a sense of irony, because accomplishing that task—or at least making some progress toward it—would have put Trump in a stronger position today as he threatens to seize Greenland against the wishes of Greenlanders, the government of Denmark, and the European Union. Instead, America's large and growing national debt is not just a budgetary liability, but increasingly a geopolitical one too.

"Europe owns Greenland, it also owns a lot of Treasuries," George Saravelos, Deutsche Bank's head of currency research, reportedly wrote in a memo to the bank's clients.

In case........

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