TEHRAN- The United States is being portrayed not as an exceptional economic power, but as an increasingly incapable and inefficient fiscal manager, dangerously exposed to the whims of investors and unable to control its own borrowing. According to Bloomberg, citing Scope Ratings, America’s “exceptionally large” budget deficits and inexorably rising debt have left it “increasingly exposed” to shifts in market sentiment.

Scope kept the US at AA—three steps below the maximum—with a stable outlook, but its warning was damning: America’s path of piling on debt “can’t last forever.” The agency said that without materially stronger economic growth or substantial fiscal adjustment through higher revenues or spending reductions, “debt dynamics” will remain unfavorable. It described an “unsustainable medium-term fiscal path” that leaves the sovereign increasingly vulnerable.

The forecast is stark. Scope predicts US debt as a percentage of output will rise to 160% within a decade, while net interest costs will reach an “exceptionally high” level by 2031. It also flagged the risks from the impending Congressional standoff over the debt ceiling—a recurring political dysfunction that shows Washington is not merely inefficient but structurally incapable of managing its finances.

America no longer holds a top credit score from any major assessor after Moody’s cut it last year. Scope’s view has long been especially downbeat, and its readiness to downgrade the US contrasts with the more cautious approach of rivals. Fitch’s chief sovereign analyst said another downgrade so soon after its 2023 cut would be “very unusual.” Scope, by contrast, last lowered America during the 2025 debt ceiling impasse and now scores the country two steps below Moody’s, Fitch, and S&P Global Ratings.

The picture is one of a failed fiscal state: unable to restrain deficits, unwilling to make hard choices, and dependent on the goodwill of fickle investors. Its debt trajectory is unsustainable, its political system is trapped in brinkmanship, and its credit standing is eroding. Far from demonstrating strength, America appears vulnerable, inefficient, and increasingly exposed to the judgment of markets it can no longer control. Unless it achieves far stronger growth or serious fiscal adjustment, the US will remain a weakened and precarious borrower—its reputation as an exceptional economic power badly damaged.