The U.S. is on course to surpass both Italy and Greece in government debt for the first time this century, according to new projections from the International Monetary Fund — a stark warning about the deteriorating state of America’s public finances, The Financial Times reports.

IMF data show that U.S. general government gross debt will climb by more than 20 percentage points over the rest of the decade, reaching 143.4% of GDP by 2030. That would exceed the record levels hit after the pandemic and push the U.S. ahead of long-debt-laden European peers.

The IMF also expects Washington’s budget deficit to remain above 7% of GDP annually through the decade — the largest among advanced economies it monitors.

Italy and Greece, once flashpoints in Europe’s debt crisis, are forecast to move in the opposite direction. Both nations have tightened their budgets and are projected to reduce their debt loads by the decade’s end.

Among the G7 nations, Japan has experienced three decades of near-zero economic growth, notes Mitch Feierstein, CEO of the Glacier Environmental Fund Limited.

Japan’s debt-to-GDP ratio has skyrocketed to around 260%, Feierstein points out.

The reasons: substantial bank bailouts that led to wild central bank policies, including money printing, yield curve control, and equity buying.

“Japan’s debt burden illustrates why many central banks today are buying precious metals and why fiat currencies are in a downward spiral,” Feierstein continues. “I see a continued surge in commodity prices, especially precious metals, which I rate a strong buy on pullbacks.

“As far as equities are concerned, it’s likely the highly speculative ‘everything AI bubble is near an explosion, at which point the value of mispriced assets will collapse, leaving massive real debt to haunt holders and triggering a liquidity and credit crisis,” Feierstein says. “It’s unfortunate that, rather than learning lessons from Japan’s post-crisis three lost decades, the West seems to have embraced the same broken playbook.”

The U.S., meanwhile, is still adding to its obligations.

“It’s a symbolic moment,” said Mahmood Pradhan of the Amundi Investment Institute. “According to the CBO, U.S. debt is set to keep rising — the result of running persistent deficits.”

Pradhan cautioned that Italy’s weaker growth prospects mean it still faces long-term challenges, even as its debt ratio declines.

Unlike Italy or Greece, the U.S. benefits from issuing the world’s reserve currency, giving it far more room to borrow. But that advantage may not last forever. “Many U.S. politicians and investors tend to look down on Europe’s slow-growth economies,” said ING economist James Knightley. “But these numbers should change that conversation.”

The federal deficit ballooned during the Biden years, despite low unemployment, and the IMF sees little effort by the Trump administration to reverse course. Treasury adviser Joe Lavorgna recently argued that spending cuts and higher tariff revenues are starting to improve the picture, though analysts remain skeptical.

According to IMF data, U.S. gross debt has stayed below Italy’s and Greece’s since 2000. When adjusted for government assets — a metric known as net debt — America remains roughly 10 percentage points below Italy’s level. But that gap is closing.

“Net debt is the better measure of what investors actually have to hold — and that figure is rising, too,” said Joe Gagnon of the Peterson Institute. Italy’s net debt, by contrast, is expected to start falling after 2028.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has won investor confidence with stricter budget controls and EU-funded recovery programs worth over €200 billion. Italy is now projected to post a primary surplus of nearly 1% of GDP this year and cut its overall deficit to 3% — potentially exiting the EU’s excessive-deficit procedure earlier than planned.

Credit agencies have taken notice: DBRS Morningstar upgraded Italy’s rating to “A (low)” this month, citing stronger revenues and labor-market gains.

The U.S., by contrast, faces a stalemate over how to rein in spending. “Democrats don’t want to cut programs, and Republicans won’t raise taxes,” said Gagnon. “That stalemate is hard to break.”

Former IMF chief economist Maury Obstfeld was even blunter: any optimism about the U.S. fiscal outlook, he said, “rests on wishful thinking” about productivity, tariffs, demographics, or interest rates — “or perhaps all of the above.”