Britain’s Liam Fox has a warning for America: Fix the debt problem now or suffer the consequences of less power on the world stage. The former U.K. secretary of state for defense visited Heritage to explain why America’s debt is a national security issue.

>> Watch the full 45-minute speech, “Warning to a Superpower”

Fox faced cuts to the armed forces in the United Kingdom during his tenure. He said the amount of interest Britain pays on its debt is larger today than its budget for defense. Fox explained that both Britain and America should be concerned about the impact our national debt has on our security.

“The real issue is the indebtedness of Western nations,” he stressed, “Here in the United States, there is a certain irony in the fact that in order to maintain debt interest payment by the national government, America is having to cut its security budget so that some of that money on the debt interest ends up in Moscow and Beijing.” He underscored to the need for serious reforms to tackle what he described as our “absolutely unsustainable” level of national debt. Western economies, he warned “are up to their necks in debt and if they don’t do something about it, [they] will drown in that debt.”

During an interview before his Heritage speech, Fox addressed the current controversy in Afghanistan and the threat of an early withdrawal by U.S. and coalition forces. He also reacted to American concerns that the United States was morphing into Europe.

The interview runs about 4 minutes. Hosted by Rob Bluey and produced by Brandon Stewart. For more videos from Heritage, subscribe to our YouTube channel.