US Treasuries Have Become Unappetizing for Foreign Central Banks and Governments

https://wolfstreet.com/2026/09/17/treasuries-have-become-badly-unappetizing-for-foreign-central-banks-governments/

60•iamnothere•1h ago

Comments

1over137•52m ago

US everything has become unappetizing for everyone outside the US.

toomuchtodo•43m ago

Exorbitant privilege is a gift that lasts only as long as the trust does.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47635834 covers this succinctly:

> America was in practice running an empire that collected tribute from the rest of planet earth in exchange for entries in a database denominated in a currency they controlled and that was accepted everywhere. Really the only way it could go wrong is putting it under the control of someone who doesn't understand the kayfabe...

from

Gold overtakes U.S. Treasuries as the largest foreign reserve asset - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47635056 - April 2026 (250 comments)

rayiner•11m ago

This argument fundamentally does not make sense. Look at a chart of U.S. GDP per capita growth: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zSCw!,f_auto,q_auto:...

The U.S. was growing at the same rate or faster as the UK from 1830 to 1930, when the UK had an empire and the U.S. didn’t. Then, in the second half of the 20th century when the U.S. had an empire and the UK didn’t, the growth rates were more or less the same in both places in the long run trend (ignoring the UK’s step change hit from WWII).

dixie_land•1m ago

The £ was backed by UK's (perceived) military might just as $ is by the States'.

The the war on Iran (and many years of war on terror) showed we have anything but

rpdillon•28m ago

And many of us inside the US as well, tbf.

carefree-bob•13m ago

This is nonsense. The rest of the world holds 9.7 Trillion in Treasuries and this amount increased by $500 billion over the last year.

So the opposite of this article is true. You can get all the data from the Z.1 release.

Please don't take these types of flame bait articles seriously or try to spin up an entire world view based on them as you will end up not only directionally wrong, but believe in the exact opposite of reality.

FYI, that $500B increase in treasury holdings is not the whole picture, there are also the agencies (housing mortage backed securities guaranteed by the govt) and foreign holdings of those also increased by $70 billion over the last year, and are about 1.5 Trillion.

bflesch•10m ago

Institutional investors are very slow to adapt, so I wouldn't take their continued investment as a positive signal. The sentiment shift is real, and a lot of goodwill has been spent.

It's basically divide and conquer on a national scale tearing down the democratic world police and the democratic systems it supported.

slg•4m ago

Sure, the engines may have died, but not only is the plane still airborne, it's even accelerating!

isodev•1m ago

Imagine, even Apple is moving itself to the shitlist.

paulsutter•48m ago

I was dismissive when I saw the title, but they have real statistics: foreign holdings are at 2012 levels while total treasuries outstanding are 3x larger.

freefolks•33m ago

treasuries are the same as cash. All that means is there is still too much USD Money supply from QE and rates will continue to go higher to reduce the supply.

lvl256•39m ago

I think RoW is trying to send a message to certain US constituents.

apercu•37m ago

RoW = Rest of World?

If so, those constituencies are immune to facts and common sense.

pnut•34m ago

Please don't make us decode your acronym https://www.acronymfinder.com/ROW.html

reenorap•27m ago

Yes, that's called Quantitative Easing after the Global Financial Crisis. The peak in the graph was 2008 after which the US issues a shit ton of debt which was bought by the Fed. China used to be the biggest holder of US Treasuries but now it's the Federal Reserve and Japan.

But the idea that you look at that graph as say it's "unappetizing" is dumb. Most foreign governments besides China have INCREASED their UST holdings. The only reason why the % is dropping is because of the massive amount bought by the Fed which messed up the %.

method_capital•23m ago

Yeah ... and exactly how many of our treasury auctions have failed? Zero. Overbid by foreign parties, all of them.

reenorap•14m ago

Exactly. Same as when Bessent wanted to buy 6B in long bonds but only bought 5.XB, people said that it failed but anyone who understands knows that it's the opposite. The oversubscription rate is normally 3X or more but this time it was 2X which means that people would rather keep their long bonds, which shows confidence in them.

reenorap•18m ago

Every graph of foreign ownership is up and to the left over the last 10 years

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/foreign-treasury-...

Only China has gone down:

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/foreign-treasury-...

I stand corrected about Japan it looks like they've been flat over the last 10+ YEARS

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/foreign-treasury-...

Basically the article linked above is dumb, and they either are stupid and don't understand what they're talking about or trying to cast a false narrative

llmslave•23m ago

US policy:

1. print money

2. suppress wages by shipping in cheap labor

3. reassure the population you arent doing the above

tastyfreeze•11m ago

Step 3 is profit. As in, "we are robbing you blind but that's not my hand in your pocket".

llmslave•6m ago

unreal that they are still doing it too

csomar•23m ago

The issue (real issue?) is that it’s unclear whether these governments reduced their holdings or switched them to these opaque structures (tether can be considered one). The idea is, it would be hard for the US to untangle true ownership. I wonder if UBO was getting undone blue or red because it’s a real threat for such a system but the US needs this “second” lifeline.

sidewndr46•16m ago

Are their sovereign states dumb enough to invest in Tether?

kelnos•17m ago

Looking at the graphs in the article, I don't think the overall picture supports the headline...

thechao•12m ago

Yeah. The headline is utterly divorced from the reality of the charts?

iamnothere•10m ago

How so? Foreign official holdings are flat since 2012.

The headline specifically refers to central bank and government holdings.

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