Source: The US National Debt (http://www.uwsa.com/us-national-debt.html) - While the number may seem surprising at first, you also should consider that the United States has the largest economy in the world with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of nearly 14 trillion dollars. A common way of looking at a country's national debt as a ratio to it's GDP. The ratio of the United State's public debt to it's GDP is roughly 61%, putting it at 27th of 125 countries in the world in terms of debt burden according to wikipedia on June 30th 2008.