Article

China and Japan Sell $350B in US Debt

Here is the translation of the provided text into English: Regarding the latest data on U.S. Treasury bonds, by combining the data of sellers and buyers, we can see the real situation that U.S. bonds are facing.

On July 19th, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released the report on International Capital Flows (TIC) for May.

Due to a two-month time lag in this data, the latest data available is for May, and the data for June will be released in August.

In that month, overseas countries held $8.13 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds.

Among them, China, Japan, Switzerland, and Luxembourg reduced their holdings of U.S. bonds, while European countries represented by the UK increased their holdings, leading to an overall increase in their positions.

This time, both China and Japan sold U.S. bonds; Japan reduced its holdings by $22 billion in May, bringing its holdings down to $1.12 trillion.

This is the second consecutive month of large-scale reductions, following a $37.5 billion reduction in April.

Over two months, Japan has reduced its holdings by a total of $59.5 billion.

Advertisement

Since the Fed's rate hike in 2022, Japan has cumulatively sold $120 billion, with the highest sales volume in 2022, reaching $200 billion.

However, it started buying continuously from the beginning of 2023 until April this year, when it resumed selling.

Therefore, Japan remains the largest foreign creditor of the U.S., and China is the second-largest.

China reduced its holdings by $2.4 billion in May, bringing its holdings down to $768.4 billion, which is the smallest change in holdings in the past year.

Although China increased its holdings by $3.3 billion in April, it has been continuously reducing holdings from January to March this year, and with the reduction in May, it has reduced its holdings by $48 billion in the first five months of this year.

If we count from the Fed's rate hike in 2022, China has cumulatively sold $230 billion.

Therefore, since the Fed's rate hike, China and Japan have sold a total of $350 billion, and the overall holdings of the top two holders of U.S. bonds have decreased.

It is worth noting that even the Fed has been continuously reducing its holdings of U.S. bonds since the rate hike in 2022, selling $1.3 trillion over two years, and currently holding $4.6 trillion in U.S. bonds.

It can be seen that the Fed's sale of $1.3 trillion, China and Japan's sale of $350 billion, and the sales by other overseas investors have led to a large overall volume of sales.

Moreover, the U.S. still needs to issue new bonds.

Who is taking over?

In fact, by looking at the structure of U.S. bonds, it is clear that the current total amount of U.S. bonds is about $34.8 trillion, with overseas countries represented by China, Japan, and the UK holding $8.1 trillion, accounting for 23.2% of the total amount of U.S. bonds.

The remaining 76.8% of U.S. bonds are held by domestic U.S. investors, among which various government funds such as U.S. pension funds and social security trust funds hold $7 trillion in U.S. bonds, U.S. mutual funds hold $4.8 trillion, U.S. banking institutions hold $2.2 trillion, and state governments hold $1.2 trillion...

In addition, U.S. insurance institutions hold more than $500 billion, and Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway holds $150 billion in U.S. bonds, and various U.S. asset management companies hold $2 trillion.

In the past two years, the largest "buyer" of U.S. bonds has emerged, with U.S. private investors increasing their holdings by $2 trillion, including individual investors and family investments in the U.S., after all, the high interest rate of 5% has a great attraction.

Moreover, U.S. domestic funds, insurance, banks, and asset management companies have increased their holdings by more than $3 trillion, so U.S. domestic investors are not only the largest holders of U.S. bonds but also the largest "buyers".

At the moment of "de-dollarization" globally, gold has been favored and sought after by various countries, with overseas central banks continuously increasing their gold reserves.

Coupled with the Fed's expectation of interest rate cuts, the price of gold has soared, and the trust in the dollar has declined.

Major institutions generally predict that the Fed will start cutting interest rates in September.

After all, the current scale of U.S. bonds is high, and it requires higher interest expenses.

In March this year, the U.S. Department of the Treasury paid $89 billion in interest, and the interest expense for the year will exceed $100 billion.

By 2050, interest expenses will account for one-third of U.S. fiscal revenue, and the fiscal deficit will be even more serious.

If Trump is re-elected this year, the U.S. debt will continue to set new records, falling into a quagmire of debt and deficit, which will undoubtedly accelerate the collapse of the dollar's hegemony.

Leave A Comment