Just as a point of perspective, when I was stationed in Japan in the early 1970s, the rate was 360 yen to the dollar, making Japanese products highly sought after. Unrelated to Lena's video, I have to wonder why, 80 years after WWII, we still have troops stationed in Japan.
Hello Tom! Thank you for commenting and sharing! It is indeed an interesting discussion about the US bases in Japan. The ability to project power in East Asia to "contain" China has been a top foreign policy goal for decades, even though it reveals the host country's lack of sovereignty. After being nuked by the US, one has to wonder why generations of Japanese still have not objected to this.
It's obvious US treasuries will remain on a downward curve, yields will continue to rise as national debt increases. Japan should invest in itself rather than investing on a loser like the US. It's funny to note Japan for 70 years has led the way on bending over for US hegemony and now Europe is following suit.
Clearly, you missed the chart showing countries' debt as a percentage of GDP. Japan is the highest in the world. They ARE the world's biggest loser country. The population is also ageing. Many products sold by iconic Japanese companies are now made elsewhere than Japan. Keeping interest rates at near zero for decades has consequences.
Is Japan a soverign country? Being that in just the last couple of years of the top three holders of US foreign-owned debt - Japan, the UK, and China(in that order) - the UK overtook China's second spot, one could do a comparison of Japan with the UK, being that the UK doesn't have nearly the same debt problem as Japan. Is the UK( and some other European countries) eventually going to overtake Japan's top spot?
The next three countries that hold foreign-owned US debt are more interesting, mainly because they have much smaller populations and also because they are generally recognized as 'tax havens'. These are Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands. But the figure represented here at the 1m27s mark is for February 2026. The following link at Lambda Finance https://www.lambdafin.com/articles/foreign-holdings-us-treasuries-by-country has updated information from April 2026, the US Treasury has, also, updated its numbers since February.
Just as a point of perspective, when I was stationed in Japan in the early 1970s, the rate was 360 yen to the dollar, making Japanese products highly sought after. Unrelated to Lena's video, I have to wonder why, 80 years after WWII, we still have troops stationed in Japan.
Hello Tom! Thank you for commenting and sharing! It is indeed an interesting discussion about the US bases in Japan. The ability to project power in East Asia to "contain" China has been a top foreign policy goal for decades, even though it reveals the host country's lack of sovereignty. After being nuked by the US, one has to wonder why generations of Japanese still have not objected to this.
Hi Lena, I believe you covered this well. I prefer your short videos to longer "expert" ones.
It's obvious US treasuries will remain on a downward curve, yields will continue to rise as national debt increases. Japan should invest in itself rather than investing on a loser like the US. It's funny to note Japan for 70 years has led the way on bending over for US hegemony and now Europe is following suit.
"It's funny to note Japan for 70 years has led the way on bending over for US hegemony and now Europe is following suit."
Yes, but the US has been a sovereign power to Europe since 1945.
Clearly, you missed the chart showing countries' debt as a percentage of GDP. Japan is the highest in the world. They ARE the world's biggest loser country. The population is also ageing. Many products sold by iconic Japanese companies are now made elsewhere than Japan. Keeping interest rates at near zero for decades has consequences.
I am aware of Japan's weakness which weakness has only grown as it continued to bend over for lhe loser US.
Excellent video. Thanks Lena!
Is Japan a soverign country? Being that in just the last couple of years of the top three holders of US foreign-owned debt - Japan, the UK, and China(in that order) - the UK overtook China's second spot, one could do a comparison of Japan with the UK, being that the UK doesn't have nearly the same debt problem as Japan. Is the UK( and some other European countries) eventually going to overtake Japan's top spot?
The next three countries that hold foreign-owned US debt are more interesting, mainly because they have much smaller populations and also because they are generally recognized as 'tax havens'. These are Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands. But the figure represented here at the 1m27s mark is for February 2026. The following link at Lambda Finance https://www.lambdafin.com/articles/foreign-holdings-us-treasuries-by-country has updated information from April 2026, the US Treasury has, also, updated its numbers since February.