Scope keeps the US at AA- and warns debt could reach 160% of GDP

Scope Ratings maintained its sovereign rating on the United States at AA- with a stable outlook, while warning about rising interest costs and debt-limit disputes, UA.News reported². Yahoo Finance reported the agency’s central projection: US debt could reach 160% of GDP within a decade³. Investing.com’s India edition carried the same 160% projection⁵. NDTV Profit reported the agency’s conclusion that the US debt path leaves the country “increasingly exposed”⁴.

Fortune reported Scope’s language on the political mechanics, quoting the agency as saying that on the debt limit “the post-midterm political landscape could increase the scope for prolonged partisan standoffs”, with a further reference to repeated debt-ceiling episodes in text that the excerpt cuts off¹. Yahoo Finance reported that Scope last downgraded the country during the 2025 debt-ceiling impasse and currently rates it two levels below Moody’s Ratings and Fitch Ratings³. NDTV Profit reported the same history and added S&P Global Ratings to the comparison, putting Scope two steps below all three⁴.

Why it matters to investors

Scope is the smallest of the agencies named in these reports and the most negative on the United States, by two notches^3,4. That gap is the point: the rating action itself changes nothing, while the reasoning describes a path that the larger agencies have not yet endorsed^3,4. The projection travelled widely on the day, carried in identical terms by Yahoo Finance and by Investing.com’s India edition^3,5.

Fortune’s framing is that US debt is increasingly at the mercy of the market as interest costs surge and the debt ceiling looms¹. The two risks compound. A borrower whose interest bill is rising needs continuous access to the market, and a debt-limit standoff is precisely an interruption to that access^1,2. Scope’s own precedent is that it downgraded during the 2025 impasse rather than on the debt trajectory alone^3,4.

What to watch

The midterms are the trigger Scope itself names. Fortune quoted the agency pointing to the post-midterm landscape as the period in which prolonged partisan standoffs become more likely¹. That puts a date range on the risk rather than leaving it open-ended¹.

The second marker is whether the larger agencies move toward Scope’s view or Scope stays the outlier^3,4. The stable outlook means Scope is not signalling a further cut from here². UA.News reported the agency listing rising interest costs and debt-limit disputes together, with a third factor in text the excerpt does not carry, so the full set of concerns behind the affirmation is not visible in these reports².