If the US government continues to ignore the country’s ballooning debt, America could face a Liz Truss-style market shock, came the stark warning today from the director of the Congressional Budget Office.

The US federal burden is on an “unprecedented” trajectory, Phillip Swagel, the head of Congress’s independent fiscal watchdog, told The FT, after the CBO published new projections that the country’s already vast debt pile is set to keep on climbing, far beyond any previously recorded level.

At the end of last year, the US debt pile amounted to $26.2tn, or 97 per cent of GDP. According to the CBO, debt-to-GDP levels will reach a new all-time-high in 2029, smashing the previous Second World War record of 116 per cent of GDP.