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Which Countries Own the Most U.S. Debt?

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Foreign Countries Holding the Most U.S. Debt

The Foreign Countries Holding the Most U.S. Debt

In the international finance system, U.S. debt can be bought and held by virtually anyone.

In fact, if you hold a U.S. Treasury bond or a T-Bill in your portfolio right now, you are already a creditor to the United States government.

And as you can see in today’s chart from HowMuch.net, foreign countries like China and Japan can also accumulate large positions in U.S. Treasurys, making them significant players in the overall United States debt pie.

U.S. Debt: The Big Picture

The United States federal debt currently sits at $22 trillion, and it’s held by a range of domestic and foreign investors.

EntityDebt HoldingsShare of Total
U.S. Government and Federal Reserve$8.1 trillion36.8%
Foreign and international$6.3 trillion28.5%
Mutual funds$2.06 trillion9.4%
Pension funds$0.92 trillion4.2%
Banks$0.77 trillion3.5%
State and local governments$0.69 trillion3.1%
Other investors$3.18 trillion14.5%
Total$21.97 trillion100.0%

As you can see, about $8.1 trillion of debt is held by departments of the U.S. government or the Federal Reserve. This number would include securities sitting in retirement accounts of federal employees, social security trust funds, or any of the Treasurys sitting on the Fed’s balance sheet.

Next, another $7.6 trillion of debt is held by domestic investors. These are marketable securities held by banks, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and other investors.

While debt held domestically is mostly uninteresting, a bigger question mark is the $6.3 trillion of debt that is owned by foreign countries. After all, couldn’t a country like China “weaponize” its large holdings of Treasury securities as a form of retaliation in the ongoing trade war?

Foreign Owners of the Debt

Internationally, the biggest owners of debt include China and Japan, each with over $1 trillion.

RankCountryU.S. Debt HoldingsPercentage of Foreign U.S. Debt Held (%)
#1🇨🇳 China$1.11 trillion17.3%
#2🇯🇵 Japan$1.06 trillion16.5%
#3🇧🇷 Brazil$307 billion4.8%
#4🇬🇧 United Kingdom$301 billion4.7%
#5🇮🇪 Ireland$270 billion4.2%
#6🇨🇭 Switzerland$227 billion3.5%
#7🇱🇺 Luxembourg$224 billion3.5%
#8🇰🇾 Cayman Islands$217 billion3.4%
#9🇭🇰 Hong Kong$206 billion3.2%
#10🇧🇪 Belgium$180 billion2.8%
#11🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia$177 billion2.8%
#12🇹🇼 Taiwan$171 billion2.7%

Why does China hold so much of the foreign-owned U.S. debt?

China has accumulated Treasury securities over decades, as part of its strategy to keep its domestic currency from strengthening. Interestingly, the export-heavy nation has reduced its swath of Treasurys in recent months, selling off close to $200 billion of them.

Treasury Holdings China vs. Japan

Although China has $1.11 trillion of Treasurys left in reserve, the general consensus is that dumping all of them at once would destabilize the global financial system, having an equally negative effect on China as well.

That said, with foreign nations holding U.S. debt, such a risk will always exist.

Gimme Shelter

While it’s not surprising to see countries like China, Japan, or Brazil on the list of top foreign debt holders, what are places like the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg, or Ireland doing on the list?

Two simple facts help to explain these anomalies.

Firstly, despite having a population of just 60,000 people, the Cayman Islands is a hedge fund capital with over 10,000 funds domiciled there. Luxembourg makes the list for similar reasons, given that it is the European-based tax shelter equivalent.

Ireland, on the other hand, is the overseas headquarters for many U.S.-based tech giants like Facebook or Alphabet. Apparently, these corporations like to hold their overseas profits in highly-liquid Treasurys, rather than paying a repatriation tax to bring the cash back to American soil.

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Charted: What are Retail Investors Interested in Buying in 2023?

What key themes and strategies are retail investors looking at for the rest of 2023? Preview: AI is a popular choice.

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A cropped bar chart showing the various options retail investors picked as part of their strategy for the second half of 2023.

Charted: Retail Investors’ Top Picks for 2023

U.S. retail investors, enticed by a brief pause in the interest rate cycle, came roaring back in the early summer. But what are their investment priorities for the second half of 2023?

We visualized the data from Public’s 2023 Retail Investor Report, which surveyed 1,005 retail investors on their platform, asking “which investment strategy or themes are you interested in as part of your overall investment strategy?”

Survey respondents ticked all the options that applied to them, thus their response percentages do not sum to 100%.

Where Are Retail Investors Putting Their Money?

By far the most popular strategy for retail investors is dividend investing with 50% of the respondents selecting it as something they’re interested in.

Dividends can help supplement incomes and come with tax benefits (especially for lower income investors or if the dividend is paid out into a tax-deferred account), and can be a popular choice during more inflationary times.

Investment StrategyPercent of Respondents
Dividend Investing50%
Artificial Intelligence36%
Total Stock Market Index36%
Renewable Energy33%
Big Tech31%
Treasuries (T-Bills)31%
Electric Vehicles 27%
Large Cap26%
Small Cap24%
Emerging Markets23%
Real Estate23%
Gold & Precious Metals23%
Mid Cap19%
Inflation Protection13%
Commodities12%

Meanwhile, the hype around AI hasn’t faded, with 36% of the respondents saying they’d be interested in investing in the theme—including juggernaut chipmaker Nvidia. This is tied for second place with Total Stock Market Index investing.

Treasury Bills (30%) represent the safety anchoring of the portfolio but the ongoing climate crisis is also on investors’ minds with Renewable Energy (33%) and EVs (27%) scoring fairly high on the interest list.

Commodities and Inflation-Protection stocks on the other hand have fallen out of favor.

Come on Barbie, Let’s Go Party…

Another interesting takeaway pulled from the survey is how conversations about prevailing companies—or the buzz around them—are influencing trades. The platform found that public investors in Mattel increased 6.6 times after the success of the ‘Barbie’ movie.

Bud Light also saw a 1.5x increase in retail investors, despite receiving negative attention from their fans after the company did a beer promotion campaign with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Given the origin story of a large chunk of American retail investors revolves around GameStop and AMC, these insights aren’t new, but they do reveal a persisting trend.

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