The United States is back to paying interest rates not seen in 25 years to finance its debt. At the August 13 auction, the Treasury sold $25 billion of 30-year bonds at a high yield of 5.216%, the highest level since 2001 and above the 5.06% of July's auction (5.046% in May): in three months the cost of ultra-long-term funding has risen by roughly 17 basis points, according to CryptoBriefing. The bonds, which mature in 2056, cleared close to prevailing secondary market levels.
This was not a demand crisis. The bid-to-cover ratio came in at 2.39, signaling that investor interest is still present; it remains, however, below the 12-month average, with primary dealers absorbing 11.5% of the issuance and the awarded yield above the when-issued level, pointing to demand weaker than expected, as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes.
The issue is how much Washington must pay to attract that capital. Total federal debt reached about $39.83 trillion on August 5, according to the Senate Joint Economic Committee: $32.1 trillion held by the public and roughly $7.7 trillion in intragovernmental holdings, with the $40 trillion threshold now in sight. The first trillion of debt took 192 years to accumulate, the latest one just five months. July's deficit was $432 billion, bringing the first ten months of fiscal 2026 to about $1.8 trillion, already above the entire fiscal 2025 deficit.
