this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RS22331

As of 2024, 70% of debt is owed domestically, i.e. bonds are owned primarily by people within the US. Only 30% of US debt is owned by foreign interests.

Foreign debt is mostly owned by Japan:

  1. Japan, $1,061 billion, 12.4% of foreign debt
  2. China, $759 billion, 8.87%
  3. United Kingdom, $722 billion, 8.44%

It's only when you group together all "European countries" that they collectively hold the most debt.

Here's a more updated figure from 2025:

https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-federal-government-has-borrowed-trillions-but-who-owns-all-that-debt/

It seems like a trend right now is that China is divesting from the US:

https://www.scmp.com/economy/global-economy/article/3340164/china-dumps-more-us-debt-buys-other-assets-trump-targets-powell

Beijing’s stockpile fell to US$682.6 billion in November, down from US$688.7 billion in October, according to US Treasury Department data released on Thursday.

That marks the lowest level since September 2008 and a nearly 10 per cent drop since last January, according to financial data provider Wind.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

The idea behind grouping them is that all those "european countries" can act as one through EU coordination. So it makes no sense to separate them when talking about negotiating power.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 22 hours ago

https://fortune.com/2026/01/18/europe-retaliation-8-trillion-sell-america-us-debt-bonds-stocks-trade-war-greenland-trump/

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260120-bessent-says-europe-dumping-us-debt-over-greenland-would-defy-logic

It doesn't miss me that this is the desire or intent of this communication, I guess for me it raises all kinds of questions like:

  • are all the European countries collectively holding that $8 trillion figure in the EU?
  • what ability does the EU have to actually determine the debts that EU member states take on?
  • what alternative to US bonds does the EU have for stable liquid assets?

That said, I support the EU on this - I hope they figure it out!

They also rely upon the rest of the world paying patent royalties and other IP associated revenue... funny how patents are basically a database of free valuable knowledge when you quit giving af about the owners 🤔

[–] udon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Europe knows how well such trade relations work to prevent conflict

[–] MareOfNights@discuss.tchncs.de 123 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

OK, I feel like many people here don't know what this means.

The US sells bonds to people. These bonds are promises to pay them back more in a certain number of years.

The EU can't demand payment for all of that debt. What the EU CAN do, is selling the bonds it already owns, flooding the market. And not buying more themselves.

This would mean, that selling more bonds would become expensive for the US. Potentially they won't find enough buyers to fund their government.

Canada already threatened that (or started to do this, I don't remember) once already at the start of Trumps term. This might have been a factor for him backing of his invasion fantasies the first time.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 3 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Full disclaimer, I'm not a finance professional.

Thats the theory, but I'm guessing in real world applications it won't quite shake out like that.

As I understand it, existing bonds paid for past deficit spending by the US Government. New bonds are issued at regular intervals by the US for two reasons:

  • to replace those bonds that have matured, but the debt still exists
  • to generate new cash to pay for even more deficit spending.

Buyers for US bonds have two place to buy US bonds from:

  • the US Government
  • existing bond holders on the secondary market

Existing bonds that Europe holds have a fixed rate of return from when they were bought. So if Europe collectively started dumping US bonds in quantity, the value of the bonds would start to decline rapidly, but that wouldn't dry up the market for new bonds issued by the US Gov.

This would mean, that selling more bonds would become expensive for the US.

True!

The US Gov would have to raise the rate of return on newly issued bonds so that non-European investors interested in holding bonds would find the new US bonds more attractive because of the higher rate of return.

Potentially they won’t find enough buyers to fund their government.

Unlikely.

This will cost the US Government more to service the debt, but unless the entire world decided to stop buying US bonds, the US would not run out of money. As dystopian as the US government is right now, its still one of the best investments in this category. The USA has never once defaulted on its debt. The worst that has happened has been Quantitative Easing (aka "printing money") for a short time during the 2008 financial crisis, and once again in March 2020 during the worst (for financial markets) of COVID. Even then the US government reversed that with Quantitative Tightening (aka "shredding printed money") to raise the value of each remaining dollar in the system. Even with these historical actions, US government debt has been one of the worlds safest investments. Time will tell if that holds up or if trump blows that up too like all of our historically hard won alliances and soft power investments.

So existing bond holders worldwide would be hit hard. I'm guessing there wouldn't even be enough buyers for Europe to sell all their bonds at once, and they'd only be able to sell a fraction of them before the value of them plummeted. Europe could continue to sell what bonds they had, but they'd be losing significant amounts of money because they'd have to discount them to the point that the lower rate of return for those existing bonds was still a compelling investment for a bond buyer.

[–] Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

TIL
US is a Ponzi scheme and US used this fraud money to make weapons in order to steal more money (oil) and prevent creditors from getting their money back 🤔

[–] pigup@lemmy.world 4 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

The U.S. already bought the guns! Europe has been had!

[–] Technus@lemmy.zip 86 points 1 day ago (8 children)

They don't even have to sell what they've got. They just have to stop buying more and invest elsewhere instead.

The US runs on a perpetually increasing deficit. If that line were to stop going up, we'd instantly fall into a recession.

[–] cheesybuddha@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They would be crazy to keep investing in the US at this point. Why throw good money after bad? Time to cut your loses and move on I think.

[–] Tiger@sh.itjust.works 40 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Because the US economy is like a coked up salesman, not a great guy, but he’s hit those growth targets out of the park. Until now. But he’s running out of gas and the party’s over, pissed off too many people.

[–] cheesybuddha@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago

So investing in the US is something like buying shady Crypto coins? Hope you get some huge gains before it tanks and possibly takes down the rest of the economy with it?

That sounds as American as apple pie.

[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah and they are getting to a point where there isn’t much growth to be had.

Which is why I think he wants Venezuela and Greenland, I honestly think the US is kind of broke.

If that keeps the party going, then unfortunately some will keep investing.

Hence why it’s actually critical not to just give him Greenland, making it hard will have an impact.

[–] Leather@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

All of this is dead on. I hope one day the US can regain the worlds trust, but I don't expect it in my lifetime.

[–] cheesybuddha@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

I kinda hope they dissolve and something more reasonable forms from their ashes. They are too big and with too much military and economic power concentrated in one spot.

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 2 points 23 hours ago

I'm surprised anyone trusted the USA after it broke the Bretton Woods agreement, said it was temporary, and then adopted a post-hoc Keynesian rationale.

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[–] III@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

This might have been a factor for him backing of his invasion fantasies the first time.

Joke is on them, he is so vapidly stupid he forgot and is again threatening Canada.

[–] HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

To add context, part of getting Great Britain and France to back off in the Suez Crisis was Eisenhower threatening to sell off American owned debt in these two countries.

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[–] bonenode@piefed.social 124 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I mean, Deutsche Bank is not exactly a good guy either. Same as pretty much all other banks.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 points 1 day ago

consider they are solely responsible for russians being able to launder money to trump since the 90s and got us to where we are now with him.

[–] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 67 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I will side with the lesser evil. But so far it's just empty words, they need to dump all of those bonds.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

The problem is you then lose any leverage. The threat is what's important. If you dump them then there's no reason Trump would stop. If they hold them then they can use them as a threat.

[–] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 7 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Yeah, it's a kind of mutual destruction tool.

However, if they were dumped, the EU would suffer financially, but Trump would not be able to simply continue, as the US economy would crumble.

The EU is the biggest lender to the US. The only reason the US is able to continue is due to all the borrowing.

The US has the largest external debt in the world, and the EU alone funded more than half of it.

The US couldn't continue without the money from the EU.

This is one thing that Americans seem to be unable to grasp and think that the USA is/was funding the EU somehow, when on reality the USA just keeps borrowing more and more.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

No, it wouldn't stop the US. Russia's economy is crumbling, but they can manage to keep fighting for several years now. A collapsing economy doesn't stop wars. It only makes them harder. The threat can stop one potentially though.

[–] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

The only reason Russia is able to continue is because they have a completely different economy to the USA.

Once capitalism crumbles, the USA will fall.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip -1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Dude, Russia has been a capitalist nation for decades. It's the exact same kind of economy. Arguably they have a different form of governance, with Putin as a dictator. I don't think we're that far apart with that right now though.

To anyone downvoting: care to give your reasoning? If you disagree, could you explain why? What kind of economy do you think Russia has?

[–] arrow74@lemmy.zip 24 points 1 day ago

Very noble of you.

The bank will side with whoever makes them the most money. Cutting off the US means a default on loans. They won't do it, they will lobby their governments to not do it, and will only do it if their home country forces them to do so.

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[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 38 points 1 day ago (8 children)

The Beaverton had an article the other day “Canada chooses lawful evil over chaotic evil”

I’ve also seen posts online along the lines of “I’d rather deal with lex Luther than the joker”

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 3 points 23 hours ago

Deutsche Bank was Trump’s biggest ~~lender~~ launderer. I guess they ran out of Russian cash?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Bank?wprov=sfti1#Banking_for_Donald_Trump,_1995%E2%80%932021

In May 2019, The New York Times reported that anti-money laundering specialists in the bank detected what appeared to be suspicious transactions involving entities controlled by Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, for which they recommended filing suspicious activity reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Treasury Department, but bank executives rejected the recommendations.

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[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 87 points 1 day ago (9 children)

Counterpoint:

If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem.

-- J. Paul Getty

I'm not defending the US, I'm just pointing out a teeny ten trillion dollar problem.

[–] MareOfNights@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 1 day ago (10 children)

They need to sell more bonds though. Europe can flood the market, leading to a collapse of the bonds value.

That would mean, more debt would become increasingly expensive for the US, potentially to the point where they won't find more lenders.

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[–] horn_e4_beaver@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 1 day ago (10 children)

I think you're missing the part where the US goes effectively bankrupt because it can't sell debt. Everybody loses.

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Yeah, same with Canada. We have about 430 billion in US debt. Admittedly not as much as Europe, but still a big chunk. And it was Carney that suggested other countries consider dumping this debt if tarifs went out of control. 

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 37 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Yes, but this doesn't go far enough. The entire world no longer benefits from a strong US. As an unreliable business partner and security partner, everyone should be coordinating the disuse of American tech, abandoning dollars and disposing of debt.

Its all unbacked liabilities now. Market makers can make the numbers go up for a time to incentivise the greedy, needy and stupid, but if there has ever been a clear case of a sinking ship, it's the US. No one is free to do business anymore. This means that US tainted assets will tank and anyone left holding the bag will be sorry. Pension funds especially. The risk vs return equation just put a singularity on the risk side. No one can afford to do business under these circumstances. Radical market interventionism breaks investment, productivity and returns.

Get out while you still can. Don't be the last one left holding the bag.

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[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Haven’t Deutsche Bank been busted multiple times for being Putins money launderers?

I cant see capitalists sacrificing trillions for 60,000 people.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 points 1 day ago

one of them being TRUMP.

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They have been busted for all sorts of stuff the controversies heading (which feels like a misnomer) in their Wikipedia is quite long.

That said they could still be correct here.

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[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Because that is MAD. Literally. Economic mutually-assured destruction.

Who had "WW3 being started over a bounced check"?

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