Per the US GAO, domestic investors hold 45% of US debt and that is the largest plurality (as of FY2020): https://www.gao.gov/americas-fiscal-future/federal-debt

Per the US GAO, domestic investors hold 45% of US debt and that is the largest plurality (as of FY2020): https://www.gao.gov/americas-fiscal-future/federal-debt https://www.gao.gov/americas-fiscal-future/federal-debt Pay attention to the Pie Chart and not the map just below it which is the part often shared to claim that China owns "too much" US debt. The map doesn't include domestic investment because it would break the color scale at roughly 9.45 Trillion (nearly 10x Chinese investment according to the map's scale and nearly 1000x above the lowest part of that scale). It probably needs an asterisk somewhere directly in the graphic mentioning that instead of accidentally implying that the US has less domestic investment than Chinese investment. 21% held by international investors is still an interestingly large number, but certainly not "the US ends if Chinese investors start to get cold feet" that a lot of pop culture has come to think of it as. (That's still not a good political reason to think you should antagonize China, but it isn't exactly "mutually assured destruction" economically speaking for those that seem intent on antagonizing China.) Don't forget: most US investors have some mix of US treasury bonds in their retirement plans, even as most of the US has migrated from pensions (which in their best years conservatively kept mixes heavily favoring US bonds) to more self-guided 401ks. Having some mixture of US bonds remains a standard practice for the US investor and the 401k market is still buying bonds because they are still a good investment for their risk profile.