Bloomberg：中国或限制美国对伊施压，美债超40万亿美元

If we could begin with what we are seeing from the Treasury Department, which, of course, on the same day announced that the U.S. debt has surpassed $40 trillion and that it's expanding buybacks on the long end, trying to rein in long term borrowing costs, how should we think about the way in which holders of our debt in countries elsewhere are looking at what's happening in the United States now and thinking about whether or not we can still offer full faith and credit.

Well, it's good to be back. And the first thing I would say is that holders of the debt around the world, they're looking at the US skeptically. And it's not just about what's happened over the past few days, and it's really about the past few years. It's the structural drivers in the US economy. And I think that's why you saw what Treasury did yesterday not really work because it's not Treasury's problem to solve. It's more fundamental about our fiscal trajectory, about eye spending.

As we were just talking about about the war in Iran. And so holders of us that have been thinking about these issues for years, and you never know, in a bond market, whether it's the U.S. or otherwise, what a tipping point will be. We've had this conversation before. What's going to be the triggering moment? It's almost like a Jenga tower and you don't know which thing is going to get pulled out. And it seems like we're flirting with it right now.

I don't think we're at that tipping over moment, but I think the rest of the world is looking. Thinking about it, judging, evaluating, not making rash decisions, but thinking about their holdings much differently than they were 2 or 3 years ago. Well, is it possible it was speaking to this as there's obviously massive demand for capital? It's not just about public as you. It's it's about private issuance as well. Could we find ourselves in the situation in the near to medium term, in which we don't have the buyers that we're looking for?

It's always possible we could. I will say that being the issuer, the world's reserve currency gives us a pretty long leash here. The problem is we're testing some of it in a way we have not in a very long time, and you don't want to get to the end of that and say, oh, I ran past the finish line and I didn't realize I pushed it too far. So I think there's more moves Treasury has in their toolkit. But as I said, I don't think that's going to solve the fundamental issues.

And I think what the bond markets are reacting to and international investors are reacting to is they don't see a plan not just from the US, but from other advanced economies as well. Does anyone want to get the debt and spending under control. They don't see any confidence of that. And that's why you're seeing the reaction you are this week. Yeah, it's fair point. The United States isn't necessarily unique in having fiscal challenges.

Uh, and we'll see what else we hear from the Treasury secretary about this. We do expect to hear from him on Monday, though, about another issue, which is Iran and the economic levers that the United States is apparently prepared to pull. The president, in announcing this, has said economic data is coming for Iran. He calls this the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country. It appears to me, though, Josh, and tell me if I'm wrong, that this isn't an operation that the U.S. is able to undertake alone.

It's actually going to be reliant on a whole host of other countries who may or may not play along. That's right. First of all, there's no way you can punish the Iranian economy more than it's already been punished over 40 years, unless you have some kind of international coalition, which we don't have, certainly with the Europeans right now. And you have Chinese banks on board, which we certainly don't have right now.

And my concern about this economic Day rhetoric, it reminds me a little bit of President Biden. So we're going to turn the rubble to rubble, if you remember that in 2022. And if you make that kind of threat and then you can't follow through on it, it can actually strengthen the Iranian regime. So it's unclear to me how we're going to choke off Iran more than we have financially without triggering immense blowback from China.

On the eve of President Xi's visit to Washington, which has been so carefully choreographed over many months now. Well, so on that point, and you mentioned Chinese banks, is does Beijing find themselves in a difficult situation here? Like, would they want to risk going against the United States in this way, not buying the bluff that we would be willing to do things like secondary sanctions or greater, uh, tariffs? Or do they have reason to believe that that the president may actually be serious about this one?

I think it's hard, from Beijing's perspective, to see how the president would be willing to trigger further global economic fallout when we see all the pressures financially that we just talked about earlier, they understand what's going on in the bond markets just like everyone else does. They understand we're facing midterms two months from now, just like everyone else does. So I think they're betting that the president wants to make a big show of economic action, but they don't think their banks are really going to be squeezed.

Now, that could be different. But it's been very rare in the past that we've actually sanctioned Chinese banks. It has happened, but they've been much smaller banks to sanction a major Chinese bank and to actually impact the Iranian economy, of course, would have fallout for China and Iran. But the fallout for us as well in global markets. Well, as we consider the prospect of sanctioning or terrifying China further, we're also facing the prospect of perhaps greater tariffs on Canadian goods if no deal is made by the new deadline of Friday at midnight.

Of course, the deadline was supposed to be earlier this week. The president extended it because negotiations are ongoing. Our reporting at Bloomberg indicates we may see a reduction in steel and aluminum tariffs by as much as half. We may see a reduction in auto tariffs uh, as well. From what you understand of what's being discussed here, is it actually Canada that might be getting the better deal. Well with all caveats that let's see the deal first, at least based on what's been reported, Canada is getting a pretty good deal here.

And I think what's interesting if you step back is who have got the best deals out of the trade wars so far. If this comes true, then it's Canada and of course China, the two countries that threatened and did retaliate on the US with tariffs. Most other countries did not. There's a kind of interesting lesson to internalize there for the rest of the world. And Mexico and Europe are going to look at this deal if it comes through and say, wait a second, you got your steel tariffs down from 50% to 25%.

Mexico is going to say, we've been negotiating in good faith with you for the past year and a half. Why are they getting a better deal. So the ripple effects of this agreement, if it does pan out, will be global. We'll have to see what comes. But it's fascinating that Canada seems to have been able to do this. But again, it doesn't get to the underlying issues. We're not talking about Usmca. We're not talking about the fundamental tariff issues.

We raise tariffs to lower tariffs. But we didn't get back to the structural issues of the trade relationship. Well, on Mexico, it is worth noting that the Canadian Prime minister, Mark Carney, said he spoke to President Sheinbaum in Mexico Uh, today. Do you expect you raise Usmca, that we'll see this bilateral deal between the U.S. and Canada? Maybe we'll see a bilateral deal between the U.S. and Mexico, and then maybe a separate Mexico Canada deal.

Is there ever going to be another trilateral North American agreement? Look, it's hard to see in the near term, we're going to get a Usmca renewal. And as you know, we're