Asked about President Trump’s recent suggestion that the U.S. should “refinance” its debt at lower interest rates over a longer time horizon, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday his department was looking into issuing “ultra-long bonds” with 50-year durations.
Echoing comments from a few weeks ago, Mnuchin said that Treasury has been looking at the issue for the past two years and is considering the option for 2020.
“We would do this in a way that if there is demand, it’s something that we would meet. I personally think it would be a good thing to expand the U.S.′ borrowing capabilities,” Mnuchin said. “I would say it’s obviously quite attractive for us to extend and derisk the U.S. Treasury borrowing. So we’re also looking at extending the weighted average maturity of the Treasury borrowing to derisk this for the U.S. people.”
