The World Was Supposed to Be Dumping America. In August, Net Foreign Buying Hit a Record $279 Billion
Treasury's capital-flow data for August show the largest monthly net foreign purchase of long-term securities in a history file that runs back to 1978, even as China cut its Treasury holdings and private demand for longer Treasury debt cooled. In our view, it is a vote of confidence Washington has to keep earning.
By Clara Hughes
ALTAS WORLD NEWS OPINION | By Clara Hughes, Chief Opinion Editor | October 17, 2026 | 6-min read For years, the doom crowd has told Americans that the world is about to walk away from the dollar and dump American assets. On Friday, the Treasury Department published the numbers for August. By Treasury's broadest long-term measure, overall net foreign purchases of long-term securities, a figure that nets out Americans' purchases of foreign securities and includes adjustments, came to $279.2 billion that month. That is the largest monthly figure in Treasury's capital-flow history file, which runs back to 1978 and has a series break in February 2023 [1][2]. In our view, that is not what an exodus looks like. It is a vote of confidence, and Washington should treat it as a responsibility rather than a blank check. Key Takeaways Foreign residents bought a net $300.7 billion of long-term U.S. securities in August: $257.8 billion by private investors and $42.9 billion by foreign official institutions [1]. The $279.2 billion record is a net figure: foreign purchases of U.S. securities minus Americans' $21.6 billion of net purchases of foreign securities, plus adjustments. The previous high was $257.2 billion in May 2025 ($261.9 billion in March 2021 before adjustments) [1][2]. Private foreigners bought a net $131.9 billion of U.S. stocks and $90.9 billion of Treasury bonds