Treasuries Lose Cachet on Lowest Foreign Demand Since ’01

The $11.6 trillion U.S. government bond market is losing some of its luster.

America’s borrowing costs are on the cusp of exceeding the rest of the world for the first time since 2010 after a political stalemate over public funding triggered a 16-day government shutdown and jeopardized the nation’s ability to pay its debt. Yields on Treasuries, which averaged less than 1 percent as recently as May, are now within 0.2 percentage point of the 1.57 percent for sovereign debt outside the U.S., according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes.