Figure 9.17: Foreign holders of U.S. Treasury securities, August 2012. The total dollar amount of U.S. securities held by foreign countries is more than $5 trillion; note, though, that the United States holds more than $6 trillion in securities from foreign countries.
[Source consulted: “Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities (in Billions of Dollars),” U.S. Treasury, at http://www.treasury.gov/resource- center/data- chart- center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt ]