Investing.com -- The ballooning U.S. budget deficit will likely continue to grow under the Trump administration as the emerging reconciliation bill from Congress shows little appetite among lawmakers to narrow the fiscal debt, putting the dollar and U.S. bonds in the crosshairs, Deutsche Bank (ETR:DBKGn) analysts said in a recent note.
“It is simple. The US cannot close its very large current account deficit unless it closes its fiscal deficit too. But over the last few days we are learning something very important: the US appears unwilling to do that. The emerging reconciliation bill from the US Congress points to ever-wide fiscal deficits above 6%,” Deutsche Bank analysts said ina. recent note, highlighting a lack of political will to address the fiscal gap.
Trump has hailed the revenue from tariffs as much needed income that can be used to finance his fiscal agenda which may include tax cuts.
But even with revenues from tariffs and the latest U.S.-China trade accord signaling a low pain threshold for taxing U.S. consumers, the budget deficit is set to keep growing.
“In all, even if we account for the (now diminished) revenues from tariffs the US budget deficit will keep growing. The current account deficit will likely keep widening in this scenario too,” the analysts said.
Deutsche Bank warns that the significance of this trend “cannot be over-estimated,” pointing to a market that is increasingly reluctant to fund the U.S.’s twin deficits.
“We worry this is brewing a major problem for the dollar and potentially the US bond market too,” the analysts said, citing America’s record negative net international investment position and the need for foreigners to absorb an ever-expanding supply of U.S. Treasuries.
The analysts argue that running wider fiscal deficits requires foreigners to buy an ever-expanding amount of Treasuries and take on more U.S. liabilities-something they believe is “no longer sustainable.” Their high-frequency foreign inflow data shows “very tepid inflows into the US,” and there is “persistent reporting of investors and countries reconsidering their dollar asset exposure, most recently in Taiwan.”
Unless the U.S. demonstrates the political will to rein in deficits, the dollar may ultimately end up paying the price. “The risk is the rest of the world forces the correction upon the US in a disorderly way,” the analysts warned.