“A Crisis Is Coming!”: Top Diplomat Frames U.S. National Debt as a Critical National Security Threat
America’s biggest financial threat isn’t brewing in Moscow, Beijing or the Middle East. According to legendary Washington, D.C., diplomat Richard Haass, it’s building right here on U.S. soil.
Richard Haass, who has spent 40 years advising presidents and tracking global danger, says the true crisis facing the United States is the $38 trillion national debt—a burden he argues is already weakening the country’s strength abroad.
“You feel a little bit like Paul Revere—except instead of the British coming, the crisis is coming,” Haass told Fortune. “It’s a slow-motion crisis. We’re already paying a significant price.”
Haass is among several experts contributing to a new debt-focused series by the Peterson Foundation, and his message is sharp. America’s debt is no longer just a math problem or a long-term budget headache. He says it has become a national security threat, and Washington is acting like it can avoid the fallout.
The numbers in his paper with coauthor Carolyn Kissane are hard to ignore. The U.S. now carries $38 trillion in federal debt, equal to about 125% of GDP. The country is running annual deficits close to $2 trillion, and interest payments have surged to roughly $1 trillion last year, which is more than the nation spent on its entire military.
“It’s already a national security crisis,” Haass said. “Servicing the debt crowds out more productive uses of national resources. You don’t need a bond market collapse to have a crisis.”
That squeeze is shaping U.S. policy. With Russia pushing ahead in Europe, China modernizing its forces, and instability flaring across the Middle East, the U.S. may soon need to raise defense spending. Yet political appetite for that kind of investment is shrinking as debt becomes the central fiscal pressure point and populist impulses make rent freezes or one-time checks more appealing.
“It becomes very hard to drum up support for what’s needed globally when people say, ‘We’re already deeply in debt. We can’t afford it,’” he said. “The debt is already limiting American options.”
Two Futures, One Warning
Haass describes two paths. The first is a dramatic “cliff” moment, similar to the UK’s 2022 crisis, when unfunded tax cuts set off a bond-market collapse and toppled a prime
minister. In the U.S., he says the spark could be a failed Treasury auction, political chaos, or even foreign coercion.
“I think China could weaponize its Treasuries,” he said. “They would pay a financial price. But if you’re Xi Jinping and your legacy is Taiwan, I think he’d pay that price.”
But the second scenario—the one Haass believes America is already living through—is slower. Debt rises every year. Domestic investment shrinks. Defense budgets get squeezed. Federal agencies tasked with cybersecurity, infrastructure, public health, and counterextremism cut back, as they did during DOGE, which experts estimate could cost taxpayers $135 billion this year in lost tax collections and productivity. Meanwhile, interest consumes more of the budget.
“[W]e are guilty of spending our rainy-day fund in sunny weather,” Haass and Kissane wrote.
For gold investors, the message is clear: when Washington refuses to confront reality, the pressure builds beneath the surface. Debt, interest costs, political paralysis, and shrinking global leverage form a chain that pushes investors toward assets that sit outside the system. Gold doesn’t depend on Congress passing a budget. It doesn’t lose value when lawmakers dodge hard choices. It holds steady when the rest wobbles.
Haass is sounding the alarm. History shows what happens when countries ignore balance sheets for too long. Markets eventually react—even if the warning signs play out in slow motion.
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