Don’t Depend on the Foreign Official Sector to Keep on Financing the US CA Deficit

If previous trends hold:

Figure 1: Total Federal debt held by public (black line), held by Fed (yellow bar), held by foreign official sector (green bar), held by foreign non-official (red bar), held by rest (blue bar), all in bn.$. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: Treasury via FRED, TIC for 2026Q1 foreign holdings, and NBER.

Note the green bars over time. Normalized by GDP:

Figure 2: Total Federal debt held by public (black line), held by Fed (yellow bar), held by foreign official sector (green bar), held by foreign non-official (red bar), held by rest (blue bar), all normalized by GDP. NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: Treasury via FRED, TIC for 2026Q1 foreign holdings, BEA, and NBER.