Mnuchin Says 50-Year Bonds Shelved After Little Market Interest

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the government has shelved plans to issue 50-year bonds because there’s little interest among investors, but may reconsider extremely long-term debt if there’s demand in the future.

“We went out to a large group of investors and solicited feedback from our Treasury borrowing committee and I was somewhat surprised that the result was that there’s some interest in this but perhaps not enough that it would make sense to issue those bonds at this time,” Mnuchin told the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday.

But he said the government hasn’t completely abandoned the idea.

“We will continue to revisit this,” he said. “If there’s market demand that’s sufficient we will again consider” 50- or 100-year bonds.

President Donald Trump has frequently complained that the U.S. should pay lower interest on its debt, comparing the country to peers such as Germany where some bond offerings last year carried negative yield.

Treasury announced in January plans to reboot a 20-year bond sometime in the first half of this year. But with the federal budget deficit set to surpass $1 trillion, and the U.S. also facing a wall of debt starting to mature later this year, other maturities have been in the mix.

To contact the reporter on this story: Saleha Mohsin in Washington at smohsin2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu

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