It is a promise that could hardly be greater \u2013 and at the same time more dangerous: President Donald Trump wants to solve America\u2019s debt problem. With multibillion-dollar tax cuts, growth-driven optimism, and an aggressive tariff policy. But what sounds like an economic revelation turns out, upon closer inspection, to be a risky game with the fiscal substance of the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because not only Democrats, but also Republican senators, investors \u2013 and even Elon Musk \u2013 are expressing doubts. The markets are nervous, the forecasts fragile, and the political support unstable. And so a country that sees itself as the economic epicenter of the world faces the question: Is this the path to prosperity \u2013 or the beginning of a controlled loss of control?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The art of sugarcoating debt<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What Trump praises in his speeches as the \"One, Big, Beautiful Bill\" is in truth a tax policy gamble with an uncertain outcome. The measures recently passed by the House of Representatives could, according to the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, increase the national deficit by more than $5 trillion over the next ten years \u2013 if they are not allowed to expire as planned. But in Washington, \"expiration\" usually just means \"extend it once no one is paying attention.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The national debt has already reached astronomical levels \u2013 over $36 trillion \u2013 while interest rates on US Treasury bonds have risen to 4.5%. For comparison: when Trump\u2019s first tax reform took effect in 2017, the rate was around 2.5%. This means every additional dollar of debt now carries almost double the burden into the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, the White House is sticking to its course \u2013 and attacks any form of criticism. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt recently dismissed the assessments of the respected Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as \u201csloppy\u201d and partisan. But what is left when the compass is declared defective? Navigation becomes a matter of instinct \u2013 or ideology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That even Elon Musk has now distanced himself from the project is a warning sign. The tech titan, who once embodied Trump\u2019s efficiency promises as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, now appears disillusioned: the legislation increases the deficit and undermines the work of his agency. It is a symbolic break \u2013 not only financially, but morally as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the White House promises growth of 3.2% per year (instead of the 1.9% projected by the CBO), economists like Kent Smetters (Penn Wharton Budget Model) remain skeptical. Harvard professor Jason Furman even speaks of \u201cpure fiction.\u201d And Ernie Tedeschi from Yale University calculates that even under optimistic assumptions, the US would need about $10 trillion in deficit reduction just to stabilize the status quo \u2013 growth alone is far from enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No room for honesty \u2013 only for show<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this climate, Trump\u2019s refusal to implement substantial spending cuts comes across as a dangerous act of political convenience. \u201cWe need a lot of votes,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t just cut.\u201d It is a sentence that reveals more about the functioning of the political apparatus than any footnote in the federal budget. What matters is not fiscal sustainability \u2013 but vote maximization in a perpetual campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so in the end, belief is supposed to rescue what mathematics has long rejected: the belief in self-sustaining growth, in magical tariff revenues, in an economy that submits to political will like a servant to his master. Trump himself declared in April that his import tariffs would bring in enough money to \u201cpay off the debt\u201d \u2013 and that \u201cvery quickly.\u201d Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent backed this up with the promise that the deficit could be more than halved within a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But courts have raised doubts about the legal basis of these tariffs. And economists like Douglas Elmendorf, Glenn Hubbard, and Zachary Liscow warn: even with rising revenues and growth, Trump\u2019s math is too optimistic \u2013 because it ignores structural realities.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Resistance within his own ranks<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, resistance is growing in the US Senate \u2013 from within Trump\u2019s own party. Ron Johnson (Wisconsin) and Rand Paul (Kentucky) want to stop the legislation until concrete spending cuts are on the table. It is a rare moment of internal dissent \u2013 and perhaps the beginning of a new dynamic. Because the further the budget hole widens, the clearer it becomes: Trump\u2019s tax promises are not based on fiscal prudence, but on political wishful thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donald Trump has created a growth-driven debt model that resembles less an economic rationale than a system of hope and assertion. The numbers tell a different story \u2013 a story of warning, over-indebtedness, and political dishonesty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so the essential question remains: Can a country be led out of a debt crisis if its leader refuses to pay the price of truth? Trump\u2019s answer is: with optimism, tariffs, and a promise. The answer from economics is: it won\u2019t be enough.<\/p>\n
Es ist ein Versprechen, das gr\u00f6\u00dfer kaum sein k\u00f6nnte \u2013 und gef\u00e4hrlicher zugleich: Pr\u00e4sident Donald Trump will Amerikas Schuldenproblem l\u00f6sen. Mit milliardenschweren Steuersenkungen, wachstumsgetriebenem Optimismus und einer aggressiven Zollpolitik. Doch was klingt wie eine \u00f6konomische Offenbarung, entpuppt sich bei genauerem Hinsehen als riskantes Spiel mit der fiskalischen Substanz der Vereinigten Staaten. Denn nicht nur Demokraten, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-business","category-trump-s-world"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kaizen-blog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Trump-tariffs-pau-rank.webp?fit=982%2C502&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Rainer Hofmann","author_link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/author\/admin\/"},"yoast_head":"\n