The debt is owed to other countries, and private bond holders.

They can request their money back, refuse to purchase future bonds, and if things get really dire, potentially go to war with the US (Don't worry, this is beyond unlikely).

Historically lending money to the US government has not been a problem. It's been a low earning but guaranteed return. Many of those loans have very long terms, and so even if it's a problem today, it wasn't when the loans were initiated, and it might not be when loans issued today come due.

Government debt is not like personal debt, for a lot of reasons that I am not smart enough to explain.

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franktankbank 15 hours ago | parent [-]

> Don't worry, this is beyond unlikely

Ch-eye-na

	▲	bilbo0s 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		China doesn't hold that much of a percentage of our debt any longer. Somewhere around USD700B. Of the USD39T, that's obviously not that large of a lever. Pretty sure the Chinese have been implementing a policy of diversification at a minimum. (Probably a more likely explanation is they are implementing a policy of delinking and not just diversification, because the share of US Treasuries they seem to be willing to hold keeps dropping.)