Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: What country holds the most U.S. debt?
As of October 2018, foreigners owned $6.2trillion of U.S. debt, or approximately 39 percent of the debt held by the public of $16.1trillion and 28 percent of the total debt of $21.8trillion.[53] At the close of 2018, the largest foreign holders[54] were China ($1.13 trillion), Japan ($1.02 trillion), Brazil ($313 billion), and Ireland ($287 billion).[55]
Household debt is defined as the combined debt of all people in a household. It includes consumer debt and mortgage loans. A significant rise in the level of this debt coincides historically with many severe economic crises and was a cause of the U.S. and subsequent European economic crises of 2007–2012. Several economists have argued that lowering this debt is essential to economic recovery in the U.S. and selected Eurozone countries.
In the context of BoP and international monetary systems, the reserve asset is the currency or other store of value that is primarily used by nations for their foreign reserves. BoP imbalances tend to manifest as hoards of the reserve asset being amassed by surplus countries, with deficit countries building debts denominated in the reserve asset or at least depleting their supply. Under a gold standard, the reserve asset for all members of the standard is gold. In the Bretton Woods system, either gold or the U.S. dollar could serve as the reserve asset, though its smooth operation depended on countries apart from the US choosing to keep most of their holdings in dollars.
Since the Great Recession, yields on U.S. treasuries and other low-risk assets have decreased due primarily to the liquidity-trap and also unconventional stimulative measures by central banks, such as ZIRP and quantitative easing. This has led investor patterns to become what is known as "reach for yield" with emerging market debt: emerging market debt is being bought by developed economy investors due to investors seeking greater interest on their holdings of debt. This led to increased issuance of debt by Russian companies in foreign currency-denominated terms, with $502 billion in foreign-currency denominated debt as of June 2014, up from $325 billion at the end of 2007.
Economist Amir Sufi at the University of Chicago argued in July 2011 that a high level of household debt was holding back the U.S. economy. Households focused on paying down private debt are not able to consume at historical levels. He advocates mortgage write-downs and other debt-related solutions to re-invigorate the economy when household debt levels are exceptionally high. Several European countries also had high household debt levels relative to historical averages leading up to the European sovereign-debt crisis. Recent research also supports the view that excessive household leverage has contributed to the weakness in consumption.
The debt of developing countries refers to the external debt incurred by governments of developing countries, generally in quantities beyond the governments' ability to repay. "Unpayable debt" is external debt with interest that exceeds what the country's politicians think they can collect from taxpayers, based on the nation's gross domestic product, thus preventing it from ever being repaid. The debt can result from many causes.
Public debt owned by foreigners has increased to approximately 50% of the total or approximately $3.4 trillion. As a result, nearly 50% of the interest payments are now leaving the country, which is different from past years when interest was paid to U.S. citizens holding the public debt. Interest expenses are projected to grow dramatically as the U.S. debt increases and interest rates rise from very low levels in 2009 to more typical historical levels. CBO estimates that nearly half of the debt increases over the 2009–2019 period will be due to interest.
Credit card debt is said to be higher in industrialized countries. The average U.S. college graduate begins his or her post-college days with more than $2,000 in credit card debt. The median credit card debt in the U.S. is $3,000 and number of cards held is two.
Some of the major risk factors which increase the probability of the external debt crises in developing countries include high level of inflation, relatively large share of short term debt in external debt, denomination of the dept in foreign currency, decrease of the terms of trade over time, unsustainable total debt service relative to GNI, high income inequality, and high share of agriculture in GDP. At the same time, holding foreign exchange reserves is a strong protective measure against an external debt crisis.
The World Bank and IMF hold that "a country can be said to achieve external debt sustainability if it can meet its current and future external debt service obligations in full, without recourse to debt rescheduling or the accumulation of arrears and without compromising growth". According to these two institutions, "bringing the net present value (NPV) of external public debt down to about 150 percent of a country's exports or 250 percent of a country's revenues" would help eliminating this "critical barrier to longer-term debt sustainability". High external debt is believed to be harmful for the economy.
Present key debates focus on how is the debt going to be paid back. First, some academia have pushed for financial debt cancellation rather than being paid for ecological damages and then paying back the country's national financial debt. However, financial debts were not even agree by people (in developing countries especially) in the first place, calling it the unfair "Volcker debt". Accepting this option could hold the risk of giving legitimize credits to these financial debts. A second solution proposed is the Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) or the universal basic income. It consists on regular cash payments to everyone in a community (or country) and has proven a certain efficacy in some places around the world (like Namibia).
Wilson thus ordered the U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic. U.S. Marines landed on May 16, 1916, and had control of the country two months later. The military government established by the U.S., led by Vice Admiral Harry Shepard Knapp, was widely repudiated by the Dominicans, with many factions within the country leading guerrilla campaigns against U.S. forces. The occupation regime kept most Dominican laws and institutions and largely pacified the general population. The occupying government also revived the Dominican economy, reduced the nation's debt, built a road network that at last interconnected all regions of the country, and created a professional National Guard to replace the warring partisan units.
In economics and government finance, debt service ratio is the ratio of debt service payments (principal + interest) of a country to that country’s export earnings. A country's international finances are healthier when this ratio is low. The ratio is between 0 and 20% for most countries.
A significant number of economists and analysts dismiss any and all concerns over foreign holdings of United States government debt denominated in U.S. dollars, including China's holdings.[68][69][70]
A credit rating is issued by a credit rating agency (CRA). A credit rating assigned to U.S. sovereign debt is an expression of how likely the assigning CRA thinks it is that the U.S. will pay back its debts. A credit rating assigned to U.S. sovereign debt also influences the interest rates the U.S. will have to pay on its debt; if its debtholders know the debt will be paid back, they do not have to price the chance of default into the interest rate. However, it should be noted that these ratings sometimes measure different things; for instance Moody's considers the expected value of the debt in the event of a default in addition to the probability of default. Some lenders also have contractual requirements only to hold debt above a certain credit rating.
The phenomenon of defaults occurring at relatively low levels of debt may be evidence that for some countries, particularly developing countries, the "safe" threshold of external debt-to-GNP is particularly low. Thus, in order to understand default decisions in these countries, it becomes essential to understand what the determinants of the "safe" threshold are. 
Households in developed countries significantly increased their household debt relative to their disposable income and GDP from 1980 to 2007 — one of the many factors behind the U.S. and European crises of 2007–2012. Research indicates that U.S. household debt increased from 43% to 62% of GDP from 1982 to 2000. Looking at the early years of the 21st century, many industrialized countries, with a notable exception of Germany, experienced a major spike of household debt versus GDP around 2007–8, with the United States leading up to 2007; by 2017, the American ratio was second only to that of the United Kingdom.
On October 8, 2003, Paris Club members announced a new approach that would allow the Paris Club to provide debt cancellation to a broader group of countries. The new approach, named the “Evian Approach” introduces a new strategy for determining Paris Club debt relief levels that is more flexible and can provide debt cancellation to a greater number of countries than was available under prior Paris Club rules. Prior to the Evian Approach’s introduction, debt cancellation was restricted to countries eligible for IDA loans from the World Bank under Naples Terms or HIPC countries under Cologne terms. Many observers believe that strong U.S. support for Iraq debt relief was an impetus for the creation of the new approach.
The U.S. Treasury statistics indicate that, at the end of 2006, non-US citizens and institutions held 44% of federal debt held by the public. , China, holding $1.26 trillion in treasury bonds, is the largest foreign financier of the U.S. public debt.
As of January 2012, public debt owned by foreigners has increased to approximately 50% of the total or approximately $5.0 trillion. As a result, nearly 50% of the interest payments are now leaving the country, which is different from past years when interest was paid to U.S. citizens holding the public debt. Interest expenses are projected to grow dramatically as the U.S. debt increases and interest rates rise from very low levels to more typical historical levels.
In most high-income countries the government assigns exclusive power to issue its national currency to a central bank, but central banks may be forbidden by law from purchasing debt directly from the government. For example, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (article 123) forbids EU central banks' direct purchase of debt of EU public bodies such as national governments. Their debt purchases have to be from the secondary markets. Monetizing debt is thus a two-step process where the government issues debt (Government bonds) to cover its spending and the central bank purchases the debt, holding it until it comes due, and leaving the system with an increased supply of money. 
The ratio is higher if the total national debt is used, by adding the "intragovernmental debt" to the "debt held by the public." For example, on April 29, 2016, debt held by the public was approximately $13.84 trillion or about 76% of GDP. Intra-governmental holdings stood at $5.35 trillion, giving a combined total public debt of $19.19 trillion. U.S. GDP for the previous 12 months was approximately $18.15 trillion, for a total debt to GDP ratio of approximately 106%.[36]
Africa Action’s Campaign to Cancel Africa’s Debt mobilizes pressure on the U.S. government to push for 100% debt cancellation for all impoverished African countries without harmful conditions. According to Africa Action, Africa's over $200 billion debt burden is the single biggest obstacle to the continent's development. Most of this debt is illegitimate, having been incurred by despotic and unrepresentative regimes. African countries spend almost $14 billion annually on debt service, diverting resources from HIV/AIDS programs, education and other important needs. The U.S. and other rich countries have resisted calls to cancel this debt, instead proposing partial solutions that are inadequate and impose harsh economic policies on indebted countries.
The United States is the largest importer of goods and second-largest exporter, though exports per capita are relatively low. In 2010, the total U.S. trade deficit was $635 billion. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners. In 2010, oil was the largest import commodity, while transportation equipment was the country's largest export. Japan is the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt. The largest holder of the U.S. debt are American entities, including federal government accounts and the Federal Reserve, who hold the majority of the debt.
Gorsuch wrote his first U.S. Supreme Court decision for a unanimous court in "Henson v. Santander Consumer USA Inc.", 582 U.S. ___ (2017). Gorsuch and the Court ruled against the borrowers, holding that Santander in this case is not a debt collector under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act since they purchased the original defaulted car loans from CitiFinancial for pennies on the dollar, making Santander the owner of the debts and not merely an agent. When the act was enacted, regulations were put on institutions that collected other companies' debts, but the act left unaddressed businesses collecting their own debts.