“We’re not talking about refinancing your mortgage. U.S. debt is traded on financial markets. Devalue the dollar and the market price of the securities goes up and the cost of buying back the debt goes up.”
You must understand something I don’t. Please explain how that works.
U.S. debt is issued by the Treasury in bonds, bills, and notes depending on maturity. Treasuries are sold and then enter into the secondary market where, depending on the type of Treasury and the return and the duration remaining and economic conditions, they can trade for more or less than face value. If you are trying to buy back Treasuries with dollars worth less than when they were issued you can expect to pay a premium. So to retire $X trillion in debt you will likely pay $Y trillion where Y reflects the premium paid.