MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/. The growth of US national debt is pushing it toward the $50 trillion mark as early as 2029, which is likely to be accompanied by rising inflation and taxes, spending cuts, high borrowing costs, and diminished confidence in the dollar, though it would be premature to speak of a collapse of the financial system, political scientist and director of the Center for Regional Policy Development Ilya Grashchenkov told TASS.

Earlier, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk agreed with the assessment that things will start to fall apart for the United States when the state debt reaches $50 trillion.

"The forecast that US national debt will reach the $50 trillion mark by 2030 is entirely realistic. At current rates, this could happen even sooner, in 2029, especially if a new recession occurs, large-scale military spending continues, or the authorities adopt further economic support programs," Grashchenkov said.

Meanwhile, the $50 trillion mark itself is not a threshold beyond which the US economy would automatically collapse, the expert noted. "There is no such magic number for sovereign debt. What matters more is the debt-to-GDP ratio, the cost of servicing the debt, and investor confidence. The US borrows in its own currency, the dollar remains the world’s primary reserve asset, and the US financial market is the largest and most liquid. This enables Washington to sustain a debt burden that would have already become critical for most other countries," he explained.

While Musk is "right in his diagnosis" regarding the rise of the national debt, he is "too categorical in his forecast," the expert stressed. "Most likely, the issue at hand is not a sudden collapse of the US in 2030, but a gradual weakening of its financial stability. America will not crash the day the counter hits $50 trillion. However, if the political system fails to reach an agreement on spending and revenue, each subsequent shock will come at an increasingly high cost. It is in this regard that Musk’s warning should be taken seriously," he emphasized.

That said, the main problem lies not so much in the size of the debt itself, but in the fact that an increasingly large share of the budget is consumed by interest payments. "The state is increasingly forced to borrow not for development, but to service existing obligations. As a result, there is less room to fund infrastructure, social programs, defense, and crisis-response measures," Grashchenkov concluded.

Earlier this week, the US state debt exceeded record $40 trillion, increasing by $20 trillion in less than 10 years. According to estimates by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, without reforms to government spending or taxation, the country's debt could reach $50 trillion in six years.