Fri May 16 23:23:50 UTC 2025: **FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

**Moody’s Downgrades U.S. Credit Rating, Cites Rising Debt**

**NEW YORK, NY – [Current Date]** – In a move that has shaken global markets and drawn sharp criticism from the Trump administration, Moody’s Ratings has downgraded the United States government’s credit rating from Aaa to Aa1. The agency cited a persistent failure by successive administrations and Congress to address the country’s growing debt and ballooning fiscal deficits.

“Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” Moody’s stated in its announcement, while maintaining a “stable” outlook for the U.S. economy. Despite the downgrade, Moody’s acknowledged the U.S.’s economic strengths, including its size, resilience, dynamism, and the U.S. dollar’s role as the global reserve currency.

Moody’s joins Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings in lowering the U.S. credit rating. The agency expects federal deficits to continue to widen, reaching nearly 9% of the U.S. economy by 2035, driven by increased interest payments, rising entitlement spending, and relatively low revenue generation. The potential extension of President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a priority of the Republican-controlled Congress, is projected to add $4 trillion to the federal primary deficit over the next decade.

The Trump administration has reacted strongly to the downgrade. White House communications director Steven Cheung dismissed the analysis as biased. Stephen Moore, former senior economic adviser to Trump, called the move “outrageous.”

The downgrade comes as a gridlocked political system struggles to address the nation’s massive deficits, with Republicans opposing tax increases and Democrats hesitant to cut spending. Analysts predict the downgrade could impact investors and markets.

“Very surprising. This is big – markets were not expecting this at all,” said Tom di Galoma, managing director of rates and trading at Mischler Financial in Utah.

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