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Q is anyone knows: would yield on the 10y going down actually help the US to refinance its existing debt (akin to a mortgage refinance), or simply issue new debt more cheaply?

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I think it's both, more debt is added all the time and the existing debt gets refinanced as it rolls over.

Just found an article about this whole strategy (and how it's not working) here[1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/us-10-year-yield...

if all these shenanigans kill the whole driving point of bonds anyway (the full faith and credit of US Govt) - will it ever be as easy for the treasury to issue bonds again?

If foreign investors like China dump our debt, prices will go down and yields will go up. As long as we increase our debt ceiling and don’t do anything intentionally crazy like try to renegotiate existing debt (which would be a technical default), we could always issue more treasuries at the higher rates with the caveat that more money will need to be spent servicing the debt, which requires even more debt be issued. A vicious cycle for sure.

New debt would be cheaper. Most US treasuries are fixed rate debt. There may be some FRNs (floating rate notes) floating around (pardon the pun) but not many. Tbills are discount instruments but also wouldn’t be affected until they mature and new ones are issued.

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