Mitu Gulati on Whether Trump Could Restructure US Debt
Odd Lots
Bloomberg
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
US Treasuries are the most important market in the world. With some $29 trillion outstanding, they create the benchmark that informs basically every other type of borrowing. Any changes to how the bond market works would be a massive deal. But lately, there's been a lot of chatter about how the Trump administration could radically restructure and refinance the US debt under the so-called "Mar-a-Lago Accord." In this episode, we speak with University of Virginia law professor Mitu Gulati about how far the administration could go to legally reform this huge and important market. We also talk about how to buy Greenland and whether Trump could make a few billion by collecting on some old loans from allies.
Read more:
One Way for Trump to Find a Few Extra Trillion Dollars
The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Bonds
Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | KPMG makes the difference by creating value, like developing strategic insights that help drive |
| 0:07.0 | M&A success, or embedding AI solutions into your business to sustain competitive advantage. |
| 0:13.0 | KPMG, make the difference. Learn more at www.kpmg.us.uslash insights. |
| 0:22.2 | I'm Shinali Bassick, and I hope you'll join me alongside my co-host, David English, |
| 0:26.8 | and many of Asia's most important institutional investors and money managers at Bloomberg |
| 0:31.6 | Invest Hong Kong, June 10th and 11. |
| 0:34.3 | We'll discuss China's growing economic influence, AI's use cases for financial services, |
| 0:39.5 | recent shocks to the geopolitical status quo, and more with financial newsmakers and dealmakers. |
| 0:45.4 | Title sponsor, InvestcoQ. Register now at Bloomberg Live.com slash investHK. |
| 0:56.7 | Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News |
| 0:59.6 | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Allaway. |
| 1:15.1 | And I'm Joe Wisenthall. |
| 1:16.5 | Joe, you know what I like to say about bonds? |
| 1:19.6 | Go on. |
| 1:20.8 | I think there's this perception that bonds are all about finance and legalities. |
| 1:27.0 | They are these contracts and borrowers have to stick to the contract, lenders have to stick |
| 1:33.3 | to the contract. |
| 1:34.8 | But actually, I like to look at bonds as more stories. |
| 1:40.3 | Yeah. |
| 1:40.7 | And I know we've been talking on this podcast a lot about norms and the idea that a lot of the way the U.S. operates is based on norms and habits that have developed over time. Bonds are kind of the same way. It's all about the narrative of who owes whom what and why. And that can change really quickly. You know, it's actually interesting about |
| 2:02.9 | you saying this. I was thinking back to our episode that we did with Sujit Endop about creditor |
| 2:08.9 | un-creditor violence. And perhaps one way to think about that whole phenomenon is the |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 17 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bloomberg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Bloomberg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.