The $800 Billion Question: Will Foreign Creditors Continue to Finance U.S. Debt?

I’ve been laying awake at night worrying about our credit status. I’m not talking about my own ability to borrow. I mean, ours–all of us– President Barack Obama’s, mine, yours, our children, the whole country.

With all the talk of the Obama administration’s coming stimulus package, there’s been very little discussion of how, exactly, we’re going to pay for the $800 billion program.

What I’m getting at is this: In order to finance the plan, the U.S. government will have to borrow from, among other sources, our creditors around the world by issuing IOUs in the way of U.S. Treasury bonds and notes. As those IOUs come due in the future, Washington will repay bond buyers–plus interest–with our (and our children’s) tax dollars.

In recent decades, the chief buyers of U.S. Treasuries have been foreign governments who have confidence in the U.S.’s ability to repay. Two of the top financiers of our debt are China and Japan. Lately, I’m concerned about how those countries view us now. Is the United States beginning to look like a bad credit risk? What incentive do the Chinese and Japanese have to continue financing our debt–especially when their own economies are under siege?

Furthermore, if as a nation, we were assigned a collective credit score, what would it be right now? Think about it: How would MasterCard, Visa, or your bank’s loan officer react if you were faced with a financial crisis of your own and after borrowing to the hilt, you tell them you need an enormous sum of money to get back on your feet. To me, that’s the fix we’re in.

Now, of course, the U.S. has a few things going for it. For starters, we’re the world’s largest economy. We’re good for it, right? Then, there’s the fact that the U.S. has never defaulted on debt–unlike, say, Argentina. Another point many economists make: The Chinese and other nations must finance our debt in order to preserve their own economies. Remember, we’re the biggest buyers of goods produced in those countries.

All of that made me feel somewhat reassured–until I read a recent blog post by economist Vinod Dar, who believes the Obama administration’s stimulus efforts will fail for a host of reasons.

Chief among those reasons, Dar writes, is the notion that “foreigners will not bail us out.” Other nations, Dar insists, face the same major economic problems as the U.S., “which are a squeeze on exports accompanied by

contracting home markets. The problem is acute for Russia and Japan, becoming more serious for Germany and Taiwan and an increasing challenge for China … The response of each nation will be similar, which is to turn inward, use their financial surpluses to subsidize internal consumption and failing companies.” Dar’s conclusion as it relates to our heretofore loyal creditors overseas: “Foreigners… now have much less capacity to buy U.S. treasuries than they did a year ago even as the U.S. Treasury plans to issue vast amounts of new paper.”

Okay, now I’m really worried. Shouldn’t we all be pulling together to get through the recession, and not relying on outside creditors? Years ago, in a college econ class, I remember learning that during World War II, Americans were the principle holders of public debt, as they bought war bonds and the like to do their patriotic duty. By the 1970s and 80s, foreigners held an average of 19% of U.S. public debt. By the 1990s, that had changed as foreigners steadily increased their purchases of Treasury securities. By 1997, 38% of U.S. debt was held overseas. And today, of the debt that is available to be financed by the public, more than half is held by foreign and international holders, according to the Treasury Department.

What’s wrong with foreigners holding so much of our public debt? Here’s what economist Dorothy Meadow Sobol had to say in a 1998 report to the New York Federal Reserve Bank: “In deciding whether to hold, add to, or sell their Treasury assets, both official and private investors will consider, among other issues, the political and economic climate in the United States and their own need for dollar-denominated assets. Uncertainty about the outlook for U.S. interest rates or the exchange rate of the dollar as well as any major shock to the U.S., global, or home-country economy could prompt any of these investors to sell their Treasury holdings and shift their dollar assets into another currency.  If these sales were to take place in a substantial amount, they could drive up U.S. interest rates and have wide-ranging effects on U.S. financial markets.”

In one indication that the Chinese are getting nervous our ability to pay them back, former adviser to the Chinese central bank, Yu Yongding, recommended earlier this week that China seek assurances from the U.S. that the $682 billion

they hold in U.S. debt won’t be eroded by “reckless policies.” A guarantee is something the U.S. can’t and won’t do. But if the Chinese government actually takes up Yu’s suggestion, it would be akin to your bank asking for additional collateral to back a loan you’ve had for years.

Bernard Anderson, an economist and professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told me to stop all the hand-wringing.

“Look at the alternatives available to the bond purchasers overseas. Who else’s bonds are out there with a higher yield? There aren’t very many other countries that can compete,” Anderson points out. “Would the Chinese rather buy Russian bonds? There’s no safer haven in the bond markets around the world. For anyone who buys U.S. paper it’s likely the paper will appreciate in value when the American economy turns around.”

Anderson, who is also a member of Black Enterprise’s Board of Economists, believes it’s a good thing that foreigners hold as much U.S. debt as they do. It’s an affirmation that, in our new global economy, we’re all in this together, he says.

So, what do you think? Are you worried about how the stimulus will be financed? Do you think it’ll work?

John Simons is the senior personal finance editor at Black Enterprise magazine.