Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen mentioned on Thursday that the specter of monetary instability prompted by falling costs for U.S. Treasury debt in latest days probably influenced President Donald Trump’s determination to reverse course and partially pause his tariff marketing campaign.
Yellen, in her first broadcast interview since leaving workplace, advised CNN Worldwide that U.S. Treasury debt yields rose sharply amid the tariff monetary turmoil, inflicting buyers to query their safe-haven standing. Bond yields transfer inversely to cost.
“It prompted extremely leveraged hedge funds that maintain US Treasuries to start to promote their holdings, and that is one thing that might actually start to set off monetary instability if there’s large gross sales of US Treasuries,” Yellen mentioned. “So my understanding is that that is one thing that was an affect on President Trump in getting him to pause the reciprocal tariffs, and it is actually one thing that ought to be of concern.”