China’s $1.1 Trillion Bet On U.S. Treasuries Still Getting Trumped

China’s $1.1 Trillion Bet On U.S. Treasuries Still Getting Trumped

Donald Trump listens to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), Republican of Kentucky, speak to ... [+] the media in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D. C., on October 16, 2017. Donald Trump and his allies found a new reason to deride Mitch McConnell. The U. S. Senate minority leader refuses to let Washington default to show China who's boss. For now, at least. McConnell is no friend to America's credit rating. He led the Republicans back in 2011, when the party held the debt ceiling hostage and cost the U. S. AAA status from Standard & Poor's. This time, McConnell is still playing with fire. Yet his decision to blink and agree to lift the statutory cap on borrowing so Washington can pay its bills, albeit temporarily, really irked Trump World. "Looks like Mitch McConnell is folding to the Democrats, again," Trump said in a statement. What the former president also means is that Republicans are folding to Xi Jinping's China, which holds $1. 1 trillion of U. S. Treasury securities. Before he entered the White House in 2017 and launched a trade war against China, Trump pondered the mechanics of default. Six months earlier,