Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries rose 3.4% in February, data from the Treasury Department showed on Wednesday, with the two largest owners, Japan and China, each building up their U.S. debt holdings.

Posted by freefalling_80

10 comments

  1. That’s not what collectively means. Collectively, Japan, China, and the UK hold $2.6 trillion.

  3. If all the nations combined own a quarter of the US debt, that means 75% of the US debt is owned by Americans.

  4. >”Collectively, Japan, China and U.K. held more than $500B worth of U.S. Treasury Securities”

    I mean that isn’t wrong … but seems a bit of an odd statement given the numbers.

    That is unless you are hinting at the fact that what you are showing *is not* the amount of USD government debt held by the *governments*, and instead are showing the amount held by foreign nationals and legal entities. This includes things like U.K. banks, Japanese banks/private firms/citizens, etc.

    Fun fact, JP Morgan Chase owns over 560 Bn Treasury securities, and BoA owns around 350 Bn. Of publicly held government debt, foreign holders are about 1/3rd.

  5. The Cayman Islands with a GDP of $7.13B as of 2023 can somehow hold $417B of US treasury debt.

    Make it make sense.

  6. You’re hiding the amount owned by US private investors and companies, ie banks. They’re lumped under “Rest of the world“ which is misleading when talking about foreign ownership.

    Own bonds through your 401k? You now own a chunk of the US government’s debt. 25% owed to foreigners, that means 75% owed to US investors, right?

  7. Whose debt does the US hold? I wonder if it cancels out?

  8. Gotta include the Fed’s holdings to make this accurate. And makes the rest look like pennies

  9. I remember there was a time China was the top 1 US debt holder holding way over one trillion and people were making a fuss about it. It is so much less than before.

  10. The Caymens and Luxembourg.

    So who *actually* owns this debt?

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