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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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Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

We visualize the recent performance of the Magnificent Seven stocks, uncovering a clear divergence between the group’s top and bottom names.

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Will Tesla Lose Its Spot in the Magnificent Seven?

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

In this graphic, we visualize the year-to-date (YTD) performance of the “Magnificent Seven”, a leading group of U.S. tech stocks that gained prominence in 2023 as the replacement of FAANG stocks.

All figures are as of March 12, 2024, and are listed in the table below.

RankCompanyYTD Change (%)
1Nvidia90.8
2Meta44.3
3Amazon16.9
4Microsoft12
5Google0.2
6Apple-6.7
7Tesla-28.5

From these numbers, we can see a clear divergence in performance across the group.

Nvidia and Meta Lead

Nvidia is the main hero of this show, setting new all-time highs seemingly every week. The chipmaker is currently the world’s third most valuable company, with a valuation of around $2.2 trillion. This puts it very close to Apple, which is currently valued at $2.7 trillion.

The second best performer of the Magnificent Seven has been Meta, which recently re-entered the trillion dollar club after falling out of favor in 2022. The company saw a massive one-day gain of $197 billion on Feb 2, 2024.

Apple and Tesla in the Red

Tesla has lost over a quarter of its value YTD as EV hype continues to fizzle out. Other pure play EV stocks like Rivian and Lucid are also down significantly in 2024.

Meanwhile, Apple shares have struggled due to weakening demand for its products in China, as well as the company’s lack of progress in the artificial intelligence (AI) space.

Investors may have also been disappointed to hear that Apple’s electric car project, which started a decade ago, has been scrapped.

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