Afghanistan, Aug. 20 -- The United States' national debt has surpassed $40 trillion for the first time in history, marking a new milestone that is intensifying concerns about the country's long-term fiscal outlook and the rising cost of servicing federal debt.
The latest figures released by the US Treasury Department show total federal debt reached $40.047 trillion on Tuesday. Of that amount, about $32.2 trillion is debt held by the public through Treasury securities owned by investors around the world, while roughly $7.8 trillion is debt owed between government agencies.
The milestone comes less than a decade after Donald Trump first entered the White House in January 2017, when the national debt stood at approximately $19.95 trillion, m...