cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11900958
cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11900680
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China’s Treasury holdings may not be shrinking at all, just changing address, and the clue is a $600 billion pile with Canada’s name on it.
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According to the report, DoubleLine’s Vitaliy Liberman noticed that Canada’s stockpile of US debt securities had grown aggressively to nearly $600 billion of Treasuries and bonds, despite a tit-for-tat tariff war between the two countries. Liberman was told that the increase was in fact due to China, which has been moving US securities to custodian banks outside the United States.
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China’s reported ownership of US Treasuries has fallen. Some investors and analysts believe that decline reflects China shifting its holdings to accounts in other countries, rather than actually reducing them, in order to give the appearance of decoupling from the United States. [The claims are unconfirmed.]
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The question matters because China has historically been one of the biggest foreign buyers of US government debt. A genuine Chinese retreat would remove an important source of demand for Treasuries at a time of heavy US borrowing, while hidden holdings would suggest that demand is more stable than the headline numbers imply. The appearance of decoupling would also carry political weight amid trade tensions.
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As an addition, official numbers by the U.S. Treasury show that largest foreign holders of U.S. treasury securities are Japan and UK, holding 1.1 and 1.0 trillion dollars, respectively. China is the third-largest holder (618 billion dollars) as of July 2026.
Canada is among the largest holders, too, counting for 426 billion dollars as per July this years. According to the linked report, this number has now increase to roughly 600 billion dollars, despite a ‘tariff war’ between Canada and the U.S.
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