Your thinking is correct, the only thing you're missing is how frequently the treasury rolls over debt into new debt. Most debt isn't 20 or 30 year bonds. Take

Your thinking is correct, the only thing you're missing is how frequently the treasury rolls over debt into new debt. Most debt isn't 20 or 30 year bonds. Take a look at the link below and see how much of the total outstanding debt is in t-bills. These are instruments with a duration of less than a year. That means throughout the year, the treasury has to issue new debt to pay off the old debt, essentially refinancing constantly. This makes the government particularly vulnerable to interest rate risk. https://www.sifma.org/resources/research/us-treasury-securities-statistics/ https://www.sifma.org/resources/research/us-treasury-securit... During the previous admin, there was talk of issuing a 100 year bond while rates were so low in order to reduce some of this risk, but nothing ever materialized. I'm not sure if this idea is on the present administration's radar at all. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-mnuchin-idUSKCN1VX2SO https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-mnuchin-idUSK...