Tracking Global Capital Flows

America's balance sheet ain't balanced
Tracking Global Capital Flows

The US net international investment position (IIP) is the difference between US residents' foreign financial assets and liabilities. According to BEA, with assets totaling $34 trillion and liabilities totaling ~$52 trillion, the net investment position was negative (–) $18.12 trillion by the end of 2021.

IIP decreased to negative (–) $17.75 trillion by the end of Q1 2022.

Source

Assets and liabilities

Assets: US assets, down $1-plus trillion in Q1, totaled $34.00 trillion at the end of Q1 2022.

Liabilities: US liabilities, down $1.4-plus trillion in Q1, totaled $51.75 trillion at the end of Q1 2022.

Source

Covid's aftermath

From BEA:

COVID–19 Impact on First–Quarter 2022 International Investment Position

The global pandemic and the economic recovery continued to impact the IIP in the first quarter of 2022. The full economic effects of the COVID–19 pandemic cannot be quantified in the IIP statistics, because the impacts are generally embedded in source data and cannot be separately identified.

Over time

As the following FRED graph shows, the IIP balance sheet — US assets less the value of US liabilities — has become increasingly unbalanced since 2006.

Source