WASHINGTON: Donald Trump returned to the White House promising to get the United States' financial house in order by slashing the scope of the federal government, ending costly "forever wars" and spurring economic growth to tame spiraling deficits.
Instead, the national debt has surged past $40 trillion in the first 19 months of his second term. Federal spending has grown, not shrunk. The six-month-old Iran war has become an expensive stalemate. And the cost of servicing the U.S. debt, meanwhile, has grown as yields on some U.S. bonds hit their highest levels in nearly two decades.
