As the U.S. Presidential, Congressional and local elections unfold, many people are on edge. Even the people who claim not to care whoever wins in any of the races are probably worried about how other people react. But what about the mountain of debt that is owed by the U.S. Treasury? And what about the foreign nations that own the U.S. because they own so much of our debt?
All of the foreign nations who own the most Treasury debt can wreak havoc on the U.S. financial system, right? Not quite so fast…
The Treasury’s Debt to the Penny has a one-day lag, but on election day the most recent figure was $35.884 trillion dollars in total public debt outstanding. That’s $28.566 trillion in debt held by the public and $7.318 trillion in intragovernmental holdings.
Before you hit the panic-button on the figure of almost $36 trillion, keep in mind that the “debt held by the public” is all of the direct Treasury issues and savings bonds and related instruments. The “intragovernmental debt” is what is owed by U.S. federal agencies and entities.
As of October 17, 2024, the most recent date of the Treasury International Capital Data (for August), the total of all net foreign acquisitions of long-term securities, short-term U.S. securities, and banking flows was a net TIC inflow of $79.2 billion. The trick is to parse out what the total Treasury holdings happen to be because this is the amount of Treasury debt that foreign governments own.
It turns out that the Top-20 nations owning the most U.S. Treasury debt hold roughly $7 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury debt. That’s not all hostile nations, and “who owns what within those foreign nations” is harder to track down. These are the 20 foreign nations which own the most in U.S. Treasury Securities:
- Japan $1.1292 Trillion
- Mainland China $774.6 Billion
- United Kingdom $743.9 Billion
- Cayman Islands $419.5 Billion
- Luxembourg $402.0 Billion
- Canada $365.4 Billion
- Belgium $325.0 Billion
- Ireland $321.8 Billion
- France $312.2 Billion
- Switzerland $296.3 Billion
- Taiwan $284.4 Billion
- India $245.9 Billion
- Singapore $239.0 Billion
- Hong Kong $235.8 Billion
- Brazil $233.3 Billion
- Norway $164.4 Billion
- Saudi Arabia $142.8 Billion
- South Korea $122.9 Billion
- Germany $96.1 Billion
- Mexico $95.7 Billion
