Who’s buying U.S. Treasury debt, and why?

To finance large and persistent budget deficits, the U.S. Treasury borrows heavily on global bond markets.

为了为巨额且持续的预算赤字提供资金，美国财政部在全球债券市场上大量举债。

Current marketable debt outstanding (including holdings of the Federal Reserve) comes to more than $30 trillion.

当前的可流通债务（包括美联储持有的债务）超过 30 万亿美元。

From July through December 2026, the Treasury expects to borrow more than $10 billion net every business day—a substantial slice of that from foreigners.

从 2026 年 7 月到 12 月，财政部预计每个工作日净借入超过 100 亿美元，其中很大一部分来自外国人。

This piece examines from whom the Treasury is doing all this borrowing.

本文探讨了财政部向谁借款。

It draws from my paper with Anusha Chari of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “ The United States and its creditors: Assessing foreign demand for US assets .”

它取自我与北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的阿努莎·查里 (Anusha Chari) 合作的论文《美国及其债权人：评估外国对美国资产的需求》。

The U.S. runs persistent budget and current account deficits, and foreign investors have been the largest single source of financing for those deficits.

美国持续存在预算和经常账户赤字，而外国投资者一直是这些赤字的最大单一融资来源。

As U.S. government debt keeps growing and net external liabilities reach roughly 70% of GDP, the willingness of foreign investors to keep buying and holding Treasuries has direct consequences for U.S. borrowing costs, the dollar, and financial stability more broadly.

随着美国政府债务持续增长，净外部负债达到GDP的约70%，外国投资者继续购买和持有美国国债的意愿对美国的借贷成本、美元和更广泛的金融稳定产生直接影响。

The April 2025 “Liberation Day” tariff episode—when a risk-off shock triggered a weaker dollar and rising long-term rates instead of the traditional flight to safety—is a reminder that this relationship can’t be taken for granted.

2025 年 4 月的“解放日”关税事件——避险冲击引发美元走软和长期利率上升，而不是传统的避险资产——提醒人们，这种关系不能被视为理所当然。

As of mid-2025, foreign official and private investors together held some 40% of outstanding U.S. Treasury securities at market value, down from a peak above 50% around the 2007–09 Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

截至 2025 年中期，外国官方和私人投资者按市值合计持有约 40% 的已发行美国国债，低于 2007-09 年全球金融危机 (GFC) 期间 50% 以上的峰值。

These figures include a comprehensive measure of Treasuries held by Cayman Islands-based hedge funds—which are substantially undercounted in official statistics.

这些数字包括对开曼群岛对冲基金持有的国债的综合衡量——官方统计数据大大低估了这些资金。

Foreign official investors—mainly central banks holding Treasuries as part of their foreign exchange reserves—dominated foreign ownership at the time of the GFC, with China and Japan playing a particularly sizable role.

全球金融危机期间，外国官方投资者（主要是持有美国国债作为外汇储备一部分的央行）在外国所有权中占主导地位，其中中国和日本发挥了尤其重要的作用。

Since then, the share of Treasuries held by foreign official investors has declined steadily, while those of foreign private investors have taken over as the larger group.

此后，外国官方投资者持有的美国国债份额稳步下降，而外国私人投资者持有的美国国债份额已成为更大的群体。

By mid-2025, foreign private holdings (including the adjustment for Cayman holdings) stood at about $7 trillion, compared with $3.9 trillion held by foreign official institutions.

到 2025 年中期，外国私人持有量（包括开曼持有量的调整）约为 7 万亿美元，而外国官方机构持有的金额为 3.9 万亿美元。

Three factors explain most of the decline in the share of official holdings:

官方持股比例下降的主要原因有以下三个因素：

Geopolitical fragmentation has reinforced this trend: countries that are more geopolitically distant from the United States, or that operate in a more fragmented global economy generally, hold smaller shares of Treasuries.

地缘政治碎片化强化了这一趋势：地缘政治上距离美国较远的国家，或者全球经济普遍较为碎片化的国家，持有的美国国债份额较小。

China and Japan are the two most important.

中国和日本是最重要的两个。

China’s reported Treasury holdings fell by about $400 billion between 2011 and 2024, even as the market value of total Treasury debt outstanding grew by $15.6 trillion.

2011年至2024年间，中国报告的美国国债持有量减少了约4000亿美元，尽管美国国债未偿债务总市值增长了15.6万亿美元。

While some of this reflects Chinese holdings that are now routed through custodians like Euroclear in Belgium, rather than a true decline in exposure, the decline in the share of Treasuries is still very substantial.

虽然这在一定程度上反映了中国持有的资产现在通过比利时欧洲清算银行等托管机构进行转移，而不是敞口的真正下降，但美国国债份额的下降仍然非常可观。

Japan’s holdings barely grew in absolute terms over the same period, as its own reserve accumulation slowed, and therefore its Treasury share declined from 10% to around 4%.

同期，由于日本自身储备积累放缓，日本持有的国债绝对值几乎没有增长，因此其国债份额从 10% 下降至 4% 左右。

Russia’s Treasury holdings dropped sharply after 2018 following U.S. sanctions.

2018年之后，受美国制裁，俄罗斯持有的美国国债大幅下降。

India is a rare exception among official holders, with its Treasury holdings rising more than fivefold as its reserves tripled.

印度是官方持有者中罕见的例外，随着其储备增加两倍，其持有的美国国债增加了五倍多。

Private demand behaves differently from official demand in several ways:

私人需求与官方需求的表现在几个方面有所不同：

Not entirely.

不完全是。

Official holdings—largely central bank reserves—tend to be stable buy-and-hold positions.

官方持有——主要是央行储备——往往是稳定的买入并持有头寸。

Private holdings are more heterogeneous: Pension funds and insurers behave more like stable, official-style investors, but highly-leveraged players such as hedge funds domiciled in the Cayman Islands have taken on a much more important role.

私人持股的情况更加多样化：养老基金和保险公司的行为更像是稳定的官方投资者，但开曼群岛的对冲基金等高杠杆参与者扮演了更重要的角色。

These are funds whose shares are mostly held by U.S. investors, hold Treasuries to facilitate basis trades and other arbitrage strategies, and can unwind their positions rapidly under stress (as seen in March 2020).

这些基金的股份主要由美国投资者持有，持有国债以促进基差交易和其他套利策略，并且可以在压力下迅速平仓（如 2020 年 3 月所示）。

A growing share of private holdings also flows through financial centers—the U.K, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Belgium, in addition to the Cayman Islands—which obscures who the ultimate investors actually are and complicates any assessment of how they might react to a shock.

越来越多的私人持股也流经金融中心——除了开曼群岛之外，英国、爱尔兰、卢森堡和比利时——这掩盖了最终投资者的实际身份，并使对他们可能如何应对冲击的评估变得复杂。

With large current and projected U.S. fiscal deficits, global supply of Treasury securities will continue to rise rapidly.

由于美国当前和预计的巨额财政赤字，全球国债供应将继续快速增长。

In turn, this will require commensurate increases in Treasury demand to keep long-term interest rates from rising further.

反过来，这将需要相应增加国债需求，以防止长期利率进一步上升。

A number of factors point to concerns related to the resilience of foreign demand.

许多因素引发了人们对外国需求弹性的担忧。

No. The evidence in our paper points to a gradual, structurally driven rebalancing rather than any wholesale flight from Treasuries.

不。我们论文中的证据表明，这是一种渐进的、结构性驱动的再平衡，而不是大规模逃离美国国债。

Total foreign holdings in dollar terms have grown, and private demand has more than offset the decline in official demand in absolute terms.

以美元计算的外国持有总量有所增加，私人需求完全抵消了官方需求绝对值的下降。

The concern is less about an imminent selloff and more about the changing character of the foreign investor base: a smaller, more stable official anchor and a larger, more heterogeneous, and more market-sensitive private base.

人们担心的不是迫在眉睫的抛售，而是外国投资者基础特征的变化：更小、更稳定的官方基础和更大、更多样化、对市场更敏感的私人基础。

The stability of U.S. Treasury financing increasingly depends on the interplay between U.S. fiscal policy, the pace and severity of geopolitical shocks, and shifting global portfolio preferences.

美国国债融资的稳定性越来越取决于美国财政政策、地缘政治冲击的速度和严重程度以及全球投资组合偏好变化之间的相互作用。

The traditional safe-haven anchor of official reserve demand has leveled off for structural reasons, and the now-larger foreign private investor base is potentially sensitive to risk sentiment shocks and geopolitical tensions, particularly in an environment of increased strains between the U.S. and its allies, which are the largest foreign holders of Treasury securities.

由于结构性原因，官方储备需求的传统避险支柱已趋于平稳，而目前规模更大的外国私人投资者基础可能对风险情绪冲击和地缘政治紧张局势敏感，特别是在美国与其盟友（美国国债最大的外国持有者）之间紧张关系加剧的环境下。

Furthermore, the growing role played by highly leveraged investors implies that sharp shifts in sentiment could trigger rapid sales and systemic stress (akin to what we witnessed in March 2020).

此外，高杠杆投资者发挥的作用越来越大，这意味着情绪的急剧变化可能会引发快速抛售和系统性压力（类似于我们在 2020 年 3 月目睹的情况）。

In sum, U.S. borrowing costs and financial stability are more exposed than in the past to swings in global sentiment—underscoring the importance of sound fiscal fundamentals as a buffer against those swings.

总而言之，美国的借贷成本和金融稳定比过去更容易受到全球情绪波动的影响，这凸显了稳健的财政基本面作为缓冲这些波动的重要性。