Interest payments on the debt are now so large that the spending is higher than the outlays for the Departments of Defense, Commerce, Homeland Security, Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration, and the U.S. Coronavirus Refundable Credits scheme—combined.
About $23T USD currently exists, ~90% of that exists only on ledgers.
The US National Debt is just shy of $40T USD
“Printing” money is an asinine suggestion, considering that trying to repay the National debt would require the US to at least double the amount of currency held digitally, if not triple it.
The entire world’s monetary system is balanced on a needle point.
not the entire world’s, just the Western financial system
Can’t think of many countries which do not participate in the global economy. You don’t need to use the dollar or trade with the US to be affected by a financial crisis outside of your borders.
Sure, there will be an effect on many countries, but it’s also just going to mean that global economy reorients around trade outside the west. China, in particular, has been actively pursuing a strategy of dual circulation ensuring their domestic economy is the primary driver rather than trade. I imagine once there is a financial crisis in the west, countries in BRICS and ASEAN will increasingly focus their trade on China.