Good morning. It is Monday, May 18, 2026, and this is Debt Desk.

We begin with the national picture, and this morning the first story is the first real test of what, exactly, came out of President Trump’s trip to Beijing. The Associated Press reported overnight that the White House says China has agreed to boost purchases of U.S. agricultural products including beef and poultry, with the administration framing the arrangement as a concrete economic win after the Trump-Xi summit. On its face, that matters because it gives the market something tangible to point to after several days of vague claims about better relations. But the reason investors are not fully relaxing is that Reuters reported Saturday that China’s commerce ministry described the summit deals as preliminary. So this is progress, but it is still conditional progress. The market now has to decide whether this was the start of a real thaw or just the start of another negotiation.

That uncertainty runs straight into the second national story, which is Taiwan. AP reported Sunday that Taiwan’s president publicly defended arms purchases from the United States after Trump described future arms sales as a negotiating chip with China. Reuters also reported over the weekend that Taiwan pressed its case for continued U.S. weapons support after Trump said he had not yet decided on a major new package. This matters because it tells you the summit did not actually remove one of the market’s biggest geopolitical overhangs. It may have lowered the temperature, but it did not settle the central security question. For markets, the read-through is simple: any headline that turns Taiwan back into an active flashpoint can quickly put a risk premium right back into oil, the dollar, and the long end of the Treasury curve.

That brings us to the third story, which is the one bond traders care about most this morning. AP reported Monday that world shares retreated and oil prices rose after Trump warned that the Iran clock is ticking. Reuters said Monday that the global bond selloff deepened as higher energy prices fed inflation fears, with the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield reaching roughly 4.63 percent and the 30-year pushing to about 5.16 percent in overnight trading. That is the key macro fact to carry into the week. Borrowers do not need a new Fed move to feel tighter conditions. If oil climbs, inflation expectations firm, and the long end keeps backing up, financing gets harder in real time.

The fourth national story is more domestic, but it matters for anyone who follows housing policy. AP reported Friday that the Trump administration is preparing a proposal to bar mixed-status families from public housing, reviving a policy fight from the first Trump term. The direct market effect is limited for private credit today, but the broader significance is real. Housing affordability, immigration, and federal support policy are now increasingly tangled together in Washington. For apartment owners, lenders, and agency-watchers, it is another sign that housing policy is not moving to the background. It is moving closer to center stage.

Put those stories together and the national backdrop this morning is pretty clear. The White House is trying to show deliverables from the China trip, but the follow-through still looks fragile. Taiwan risk is still unresolved. Oil is back to driving inflation anxiety. And housing policy is becoming a more active federal battleground again. That is the atmosphere debt markets are walking into today.

Now let’s turn to the Debt Desk.

Start with rates, because rates are still the cleanest summary of whether a deal can close and on what terms. The latest official Treasury curve available at run time remains the Treasury and Federal Reserve data carrying May 14 closes, published Friday, May 15: 4.00 percent on the 2-year, 4.13 percent on the 5-year, 4.47 percent on the 10-year, and 5.02 percent on the 30-year. By early Monday overseas trading, Reuters said the selloff had extended, with the 2-year near 4.10 percent, the 10-year around 4.63 percent, and the 30-year around 5.16 percent. The latest official SOFR publication available at run time remained in the high-3.5 to roughly 3.6 percent range, so floating-rate debt is still available, but not cheap once spread, reserves, and cap economics are layered in.

That full term structure matters more than the headline 10-year alone. The 2-year near 4 percent tells you the market still does not believe policy is about to get easy in a hurry. The 5-year in the low 4s matters because that part of the curve often maps most directly into how intermediate-duration commercial mortgage coupons actually feel in the real world. The 10-year is still the benchmark everybody quotes. But the 30-year staying around or above 5 percent is the part of the curve that keeps permanent capital cautious. When the long bond is there, life companies and other duration-sensitive lenders are not being invited into a generous mood. They are being reminded to stay selective.

So the story this morning is not just that yields are higher. It is that money is expensive across the curve, and expensive in a way that changes lender behavior. Banks can still lend, but they want clean sponsorship, modest leverage, and assets they can explain to credit. Life companies still want top-quality stabilized product, but the long end is making fixed-rate execution uncomfortable. CMBS is open, especially for institutional-quality collateral with a very clear story, but it is not in the mood to rescue weak assumptions. Debt funds remain the flexible part of the capital stack, which is exactly why they keep winning the messy assignments.

That lender mix still shows up in the broader market data. GlobeSt reported May 12, citing CBRE first-quarter figures, that commercial real estate lending hit its highest level in five years, but with alternative lenders doing more of the work. Average commercial spreads tightened to 181 basis points, multifamily spreads tightened to 136 basis points, and debt funds plus mortgage REITs took the majority share while banks, life companies, and CMBS all gave up share year over year. That is a very useful signal because it tells you two things at once. First, capital is available. Second, the capital doing the most work is still the capital most willing to price complexity.

CMBS is the best example of the market’s split personality. Commercial Observer reported late last week that Brookfield and Qatar Investment Authority closed a $1.9 billion CMBS refinancing at 2 Manhattan West. In the same reporting cycle, the market was also reminded that the $647.5 million loan at 20 Times Square returned to special servicing after missing its maturity. That contrast is still the right way to describe office debt in 2026. Trophy, institutional, easy-to-underwrite assets can still clear in size. Legacy assets tied to weaker leasing, weaker cash flow, or weaker market confidence are still running straight into maturity pressure.

Trepp’s latest maturity coverage reinforces that point. The firm reported last week that about $2.57 billion of private-label CMBS balance faces hard maturity in May, with office still driving the concentration. That matters even for borrowers outside office, because it tells you how much servicing energy and risk bandwidth the market is already consuming. When lenders and bond buyers are staring at an office-heavy maturity wall, they do not get more forgiving on everything else. They get more discriminating.

Now narrow the lens to multifamily, because apartments remain the deepest financing lane in commercial real estate even with the long end acting badly.

The freshest operating message in multifamily is not that debt is cheap. It is that debt is still there for the right story. Multi-Housing News reported May 15 that The Dermot Company secured a $355 million refinancing for 21 West End Avenue in Manhattan through Mizuho Americas and New York State Homes and Community Renewal. That is an important data point because it is a large, real gateway-market refinance getting done in a rate environment that still makes many people talk as if permanent debt has shut. It has not shut. It is selective.

The same outlet reported that Rabina and New Blueprint Partners secured $75 million of floating-rate construction debt for phase one of The VIC in Vancouver, Washington. That also fits the current playbook. Construction financing still clears, but usually in structures that preserve flexibility and assume a later handoff into permanent capital once lease-up is further along. In other words, the market is still willing to finance apartments, but it prefers to solve one risk at a time.

Commercial Observer gave another useful apartment read last week with KeyBank’s $54 million refinance for Lakeview at Westpark outside Houston. That loan turned floating-rate bridge exposure into longer-duration HUD-linked financing through a housing finance corporation structure. That matters because it is exactly the kind of transaction sophisticated borrowers keep looking for right now. If the long end is uncomfortable and floating debt still carries real all-in cost, then duration, amortization, and certainty become valuable products in their own right.

Debt-fund pricing continues to tell the same story about execution tone. Multi-Housing News reported May 14 that recent multifamily construction quotes included debt-fund executions around 335 to 350 basis points over SOFR, depending on leverage, with some bank construction quotes for cleaner deals landing closer to the low 200s over SOFR. That spread between lender buckets is the market speaking clearly. If the deal is clean and leverage is moderate, banks can still be competitive. If the deal nee...