For First Time in Quarter Century, China No Longer Second-Largest Holder of US Treasury Debt
US Treasury Bonds
Japan’s Treasury holdings remain the world’s largest, currently standing at $1.13trn. Japan warned in early May that it could use its holdings as a trump card in trade talks with Trump.China and the UK have flipped places in the ranking of top foreign holders of US Treasuries, with the Asian nation’s holdings shrinking from $784bn to $765bn from February and March, while Britain’s grew from $749bn to $779bn during the same period.
Britain’s Treasury holdings haven’t been higher than China’s since October 2000, when the People’s Republic’s economy was far smaller (3.3% vs 19.6%), and the UK’s larger (3.3% vs 2%), as a percentage of global GDP.
“This is a warning to the US,” Natixis Asia-Pacific chief economist Alicia Garcia-Herrero told UK business media, pointing out that China has been slowly offloading its US Treasury assets for years after hitting a peak of over $1.3tn in 2011.Russia sold off virtually all of its US Treasuries in 2018 amid US readiness to use the dollar as a weapon, with current holdings of about $25mln down from a historic high of $176.3bn in October 2010.
EconomyMoody’s Downgrades US Credit RatingYesterday, 03:59 GMT
