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Wednesday, 18 May 2016

Treasury dep’t releases breakdown of Saudi holdings of US debt

The mystery’s been solved, ladies and gents. The US Treasury Department yesterday released a breakdown of Saudi Arabia’s holdings of US debt for the first time since 1974 after Bloomberg News filed a Freedom-of-Information Act request. According to the data, the Saudi held USD 116.8 bn in the instruments as of March. The total has led to more than a few questions, with Saudi Arabia having USD 587 bn in foreign reserves and the debt holdings only representing 20% — much lower than the two thirds central banks usually hold in USD-denominated assets. To say nothing of the fact that that the senate just passed a bill exposing Saudi Arabia to 9/11 legal claims, meaning the kingdom “might begin selling off up to [USD] 750 [bn] in Treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they face a danger of being frozen by American courts,” according to the NYT.

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