The Debt Trap

The world is drowning in debt - and the reckoning is coming.

Sovereign debt has become the silent crisis of our age. The United States owes $35 trillion. China's hidden local-government debt may exceed $15 trillion. Europe's south remains shackled to German credit. And dozens of emerging markets are one interest-rate hike away from default.

In The Debt Trap, Nicholas Holt delivers the first truly global account of how nations borrowed their way to prosperity - and why the bill is about to come due. Drawing on central bank data, IMF reports, and on-the-ground reporting from capitals in crisis, Holt reveals the architecture of a financial system built on borrowed time.

Inside, you will discover:

• How the United States transformed from the world's largest creditor to its largest debtor - and why the dollar's dominance makes the trap worse
• China's hidden debt bomb: local government financing vehicles, shadow banking, and the property sector's slow-motion collapse
• Debt-trap diplomacy exposed: when lending becomes a weapon of geopolitical coercion
• The IMF's impossible dilemma: bailouts that save economies but destroy governments
• Corporate debt's role in the coming crisis: leveraged buyouts, zombie companies, and the end of easy money

The book explores three possible futures:

1. The Orderly Deleveraging: A generation of austerity, inflation, and managed defaults
2. The Debt Jubilee: Mass forgiveness that reshapes the global financial order
3. The Chaotic Default: A cascade of sovereign failures that triggers a new depression

For investors, policymakers, and citizens who need to understand the forces that will shape the next decade, The Debt Trap is the essential roadmap.