IMF chief urges US and wealthy nations to rein in debt to ease global economic pressure

The U.S. and oth­er wealthy na­tions need to ur­gent­ly tack­le mount­ing glob­al debt lev­els that are weigh­ing most heav­i­ly on low-in­come coun­tries and strain­ing the glob­al fi­nan­cial sys­tem, the head of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund said Wednes­day.

IMF Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor Kristali­na Georgie­va said Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Scott Bessent and oth­er U.S. lead­ers rec­og­nize that the fed­er­al deficit and na­tion­al debt are too high. But eco­nom­ic growth alone would not be enough to ad­dress the coun­try’s more than $40 tril­lion in na­tion­al debt, she said.

Mean­while, ris­ing bond yields, re­flect­ing high­er pre­mi­ums de­mand­ed by in­vestors for tak­ing on greater risk, have been dis­rupt­ing fi­nan­cial mar­kets.