Unfortunately, divestment of the US dollar is like lighting a match in a house looking for the gas leak.

The USA could still choose to default, due to internal dysfunction.

The inflation fears are part of the vicious cycle. The typical mechanism by which a government would get rid of inconvenient amounts of debt denominated in their own currency is to monetize it and inflate it away. Bond purchasers know about this, and build inflation expectations into the interest rates they are willing to accept. This increases the amount of interest the government has to pay, which makes its financial position even more precarious, which builds in future expectations of either a default or a soft-default through inflation, which pumps interest rates even more.

It is possible to break this cycle, but it requires getting spending under control. As long as you operate in deficit, it requires finding private capital to finance future operations of the government. That private capital will require interest commensurate with the expected future devaluation of its principal to lend; otherwise they are just suckers. If you can bring spending into balance then you can hike rates and bring inflation under control and you'll be somewhat insulated from what bond purchasers are willing to accept, but if you can't then increases in rates just increase government spending as well.

Japan operated at extremely high levels of debt-to-GDP because their deflationary trap turned all major Japanese corporations into large net savers. Why would you hold debt when you have to pay it back in more valuable yen in the future? That created a very large oversupply of private capital, which crowded into government bonds as the spender of last resort.

It is not possible that they won't be able to pay it off, but it is possible they will not pay it off anyway, and it is also possible that they will repay it with useless scraps of green paper.

Let's see, the biggest increases of debts under Democrats have been during the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression And the biggest worldwide pandemic in a century.

On the other hand, the biggest debt increases under Republican presidents have been to A) Start and fight multi trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and B) To cut taxes for billionaires and corporations.

Is this serious?

It's because the country went through the great recession and was attempting to pull out and avoid financial collapse.

Look at Revenue per year as a % of GDP and look at Expenses per year as a % of GDP. It's pretty clear.

Expenses went up avoiding a depression which was done successfully, and revenue dropped due to the falling economy. The president was handed a collapsing economy and saved it.

The issue is the other party that keeps getting handed great economies since the late 90s and fails to do anything but make the problem worse.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/gfdegdq188s

Debt per GDP/size of US economy is more useful. Debt/GDP has the 2008 jump as the Obama Admin tried to (but not nearly enough) stimulate out of the housing crisis. Debt/GDP looks flat until 2020.

2008 and 2020 jumps make sense in the setting the 2008 crisis and COVID which was effectively a recession assuming you believe in Keynesian economics.

Paying for US debt if you are the US is cheap when interest rates low. Trump/Bessent/Elon have been doing everything they can to drive up inflation, so now interest rates are necessarily going higher...