President Donald Trump’s assertion that U.S. growth can tame debt echoes what Ray Dalio has called the most dangerous phase of a debt cycle: when leaders mistake prosperity for immunity.
“We are becoming a country that is so rich, so powerful,” he said. “With the kind of growth we have now, the debt is very low relatively speaking. You grow yourself out of that debt.”
Real GDP rose at a solid 3.8% annualized pace in Q2 2025, but the debt picture isn’t “very low.” Gross federal debt still sits around $37.4 trillion, and the debt-to-GDP ratio is about 100% for 2025, according to Treasury and CBO-linked dashboards.
Tariff receipts are up sharply this year, but estimates show roughly $165 billion by August and about $300 billion on an annualized basis, far short of the trillion needed for paying down the debt.
On top of that, Trump also suggested the government could use tariff revenue to send Americans “distributions” of up to $2,000, which would go into consumers’ pockets instead of helping to offset budget deficits.
But Dalio, who has studied dozens of major debt cycles, wrote in his 2018 book Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises that during booms, “lending supports spending and investment, which in turn supports incomes and asset prices,” temporarily pushing growth “above the consistent productivity growth of the economy.” But that can’t last, he warned — “eventually income will fall below the cost of the loans.”
Elsewhere, he added that debt burdens only ease when “nominal income growth is higher than nominal interest rates.,” but too much stimulus risks “unacceptable inflation and currency declines.”
The billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates has cautioned against leaders celebrating prosperity as proof that leverage no longer matters, even as debt quietly outpaces income. To Dalio, that rhetoric is the hallmark of a late-stage debt cycle, before reality intrudes.
Dalio’s debt-cycle warning
Dalio has spent decades studying how countries borrow, boom, and then buckle under the weight of their obligations. Looking across nearly 50 major debt cycles—from the Roaring Twenties to the 2008 crisis—he sees the same pattern of debt fueling growth in the early stages, but eventually the debt itself grows faster than the income needed 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 party by cutting rates, but “when that happens, the deleveraging begins.”
The real danger, in Dalio’s telling, isn’t just in the debt itself but the psychology. Bubbles form because rising asset prices and higher incomes convince people they’re richer than they really are. They spend more, borrow more, and take on greater risks.
“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.”
In the U.S., debt held by the public is also projected to climb from about 100% of the GDP in 2025 to 118% by 2035, according to CBO forecasts, meaning debt is growing faster than the underlying economy. Meanwhile, CBO says the government’s net interest costs also will continue to grow as a share of GDP.
This is the scenario Dalio warns of, namely if interest costs exceed growth rates, growth can no longer carry the debt burden in the way that Trump assumes, because growth is vulnerable to shifts in rates, inflation, or the economic cycle.
The math problem
To be sure, Dalio’s framework stresses that not all debt is created equal. Borrowing for investments that generate income can be self-sustaining. But borrowing to fund consumption or to juice headline growth is not.
In the best case—a “beautiful deleveraging,” as Dalio calls it—governments balance fiscal and monetary policies so that growth outpaces interest costs, but without tipping into runaway inflation.
That’s a narrow path. Too much stimulus, and you spark inflation or currency weakness. Too much austerity, and you trigger a recession. The kind of permanent tax cuts and tariff-driven stimulus Trump is promising doesn’t fit easily into that balance.
Dalio also warned that the most misleading signals come near the top, where easy credit boosts spending, asset prices climb, unemployment falls.
Today, asset prices are at or near record highs (major indexes hit new all-time highs this week) and unemployment remains 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 investment are flowing in, the trade deficit is shrinking, and the nation is flush enough to consider mailing out checks.
“Nobody thought it was possible to do so quickly—except me,” he said.
But Dalio’s work suggests that’s exactly the mindset that gets countries into trouble. Believing that debt doesn’t matter because growth will take care of it is the last stage of the cycle, when optimism runs ahead of reality. And when the illusion breaks, the “beautiful” part of deleveraging rarely 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.”
Politics8 years ago