La Jornada: China, India and Brazil lead US bond sales

China, India and Brazil lead the decline in holdings of US Treasuries. From April of last year to the same month of 2026, between the three countries they had gotten rid of 187,407 million dollars in US government debt, the total of which amounts to 39 trillion dollars, while the developing economies convened by the economic and political coalition of emerging powers BRICS seek to strengthen their commercial and financial exchanges with their own currencies, replacing the dollar.

China remains the third country with the largest holding of US government debt, only behind Japan ($1.211 billion) and the United Kingdom ($938 billion), but in one year it got rid of $92.488 billion in Treasury bonds. In the same period, the presidency of Donald Trump has redoubled the discourse that places the Asian country as its main economic rival.

If the outflow of Chinese capital from US government debt is compared from its highest peak, February 2021, when the holding reached one trillion 104 thousand 226 million dollars, to April 2026, when the amount was 651 thousand 72 million dollars, a reduction of 41 percent has been recorded.

According to Treasury reports updated this month, India was the second country that reduced its holdings of US government bonds the most, going from $232.51 billion to $181.8 million, followed by Brazil with a reduction from $212.37 million to $168.62 billion.

The main common characteristic of these countries is that they belong to the BRICS, the most important bloc of emerging countries, initially made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, to which Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates have been added.

For more than a decade, the founding countries of the BRICS have considered reducing their dependence on the US dollar and the traditional financial system, also with significant participation from the United States, with the creation of the New Development Bank and a reserve fund. Between 2023 and 2024, progress on a common currency or a unified payment system was considered.

In the Kazan declaration in 2024, the BRICS group did not talk about the currency, but reiterated its commitment to strengthening financial cooperation between its members. “We recognize the broad benefits of faster, cheaper, more efficient, transparent, secure and inclusive cross-border payment instruments, based on the principle of minimizing trade barriers and guaranteeing non-discriminatory access,” he noted.

The Treasury data does not reveal which actors, by country, are getting rid of their bonds or whether they are central banks or other types of investors.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom and Japan are more than compensating for the departure of emerging countries such as China, India and Brazil, having increased their holdings of US debt by 129,817 million and 75,435 million dollars.

In the case of Mexico, it is shown that between April 2025 and the same month of this year, the holding of US government bonds increased 8.6 percent, to reach 97,546 million dollars. On a global scale, US debt holdings increased by $351,617 million, an increase of 3.9 percent compared to April of last year.