America’s debt is getting dumped left and right as the global slowdown worsens.
Countries around the world are selling their U. S. government debt holdings this year by the largest amounts seen since at least 2000.
China has been selling U. S. debt but it’s not alone. Lots of emerging markets like Brazil, India and Mexico are also selling U. S. Treasuries. Not that long ago all these countries were all huge buyers of U. S. debt, which is viewed as one of the safest places to park money. ‘Five or six years ago, the big concern was that China was going to own the United States,’ says Gus Faucher, senior economist at PNC Bank. ‘Now the concern is that China is selling them.’
Foreign governments have sold more U. S. Treasury bonds than they’ve bought in the 10 consecutive months through July 2015, the most recent month of available data from the Treasury Department.
Just in the first seven months of the year, foreign governments sold off $103 billion of U. S. debt, according to CNNMoney’s analysis of Treasury Department data. Last year there was an overall increase of nearly $45 billion.
This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner on October 15, 2015.
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