If the US paid $8B towards it debt every _day_ it would take over thirteen _years_ (completely ignoring interest accumulation, which isn't realistic) to pay off $38T in debt.

I don't see how this is huge in context, it is indeed symbolic.

Please don't get me wrong here, I am neither advocating the selling or not selling of US bonds. This specific sale just isn't statically significant in a vacuum. If this precipitates a snowball effect of bond-selling, completely different story.