Where Data Tells the Story
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Every country on earth owes money to someone outside its borders.
The amounts range from $461 million in Eritrea, the least indebted country, to $24.54 trillion in the United States, which carries more external debt than the next ten countries on the list combined.
The data for these insights comes from Global Firepower.
According to the source, external debt is defined as both public and private debt owed to outside parties, repayable through currency exchanges, goods, and services.
The United States owes $24.54 trillion to outside parties.
This includes foreign governments, international investors, and global financial institutions.
That figure is more than double that of the second-ranked country. The United Kingdom, which ranks second, carries $10.55 trillion.
The U.S. can sustain that position because the dollar is the world’s primary reserve currency.
Foreign governments and institutions willingly hold American debt (primarily in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds) as the safest financial store of value available globally.
That arrangement, which economists describe as an “exorbitant privilege,” is what makes a $24.54 trillion external debt position stable rather than catastrophic.
It is also what the current global trade war, which has rattled confidence in dollar-denominated assets, is putting under indirect pressure.