Not only have they stolen trillions of dollars from us, we are about $1.3 Trillon dollars in debt to them. That's 27% of the $4.1 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries. The rest of the $22 trillion national debt is owned by either the American people or by the U.S. government itself.
China has the greatest amount of U.S. debt held by a foreign country. Japan comes second at $1.10 trillion. It's followed the United Kingdom at $332 billion, Brazil at $306 and Ireland at $271 billion.
Will we ever be able to re-pay this debt? No, because we don't have to. We'll likely keep borrowing forever. The worst we have to fear is some kind of replay of 1992, with rising interest payments forcing some combination of tax hikes and/or spending cuts. There's a little bit more to fear than fear itself, but not too much more.
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