In what you might call a case of the “haves” and the “have a little less,” so-called easy money is getting harder to come by, according to a report from Yahoo! Finance.
That’s a major point made in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest research that shows a $28 trillion gap between what the United States owns in overseas assets versus what foreign investors hold.
The U.S. currently has $41 trillion in foreign assets, but overseas investors have a much larger $69 trillion in U.S. assets.
Let’s put that in perspective.
According to the Fed, that $28 trillion deficit is roughly 90% of the nation’s current GDP, which stands at $31.82 trillion, per the Joint Economic Committee’s release of May 28.
Earning From Investments
The confusing thing is that this setup has worked for the U.S. for a long time. America had been earning more from its investments abroad (such as profits, dividends, and interest) than it paid out to foreign investors on U.S. assets.
The Fed calls it the “rate of return advantage,” and it helps explain how the “U.S. income balance has seemed to defy gravity” even as liabilities grew, according to the initial report.
That income surplus is shrinking, and that’s where the worry arises, according to Yahoo! Finance.
In 2019, meanwhile, the Fed noted a “surplus [of] $260 billion.”
That surplus was erased to “near zero in 2024 and 2025,” Yahoo! Finance said.
Fed researchers concluded that payouts on U.S. assets have become a “servicing burden for the U.S. economy.” Instead of those foreign dividends or profits working in favor of Americans, it’s all going to what Yahoo! Finance called an Everest-sized mountain of debt.
According to Yahoo! Finance, there are multi-layered reasons why the United States is encountering this problem, but the Fed specifically pointed to two.
Rise in Interest Rates
The first was the sharp rise in interest rates after the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the Fed aggressively raised rates to fight inflation, the cost of paying income to foreign investors rose alongside them, the report said. That’s important because foreign investors own such huge amounts of U.S. debt and interest-paying assets such as Treasury bonds and corporate securities.
When rates were near zero, those payments stayed relatively manageable, the report noted, but higher rates changed the calculus pretty quickly.
The Fed authors wrote, “The U.S. position in interest-bearing assets … has generated large income deficits since prior to the 2008 financial crisis.”
For example, they noted that the interest balance took out $450 billion from the income surplus in 2025 alone.
Secondly, the Fed mentioned the “continued net sales of U.S. assets to foreign investors.”
To that, the Fed noted some factors, including the wide trade deficit as the U.S. brings in far more than it sends out. It’s an imbalance between imports and exports that alone totals $5.5 trillion in “deterioration.”
Yahoo! Finance noted that a bull run for U.S. equities is also helping to inflate overseas portfolios, and said that Apollo Global Management recently found that foreign investors control 18% of the U.S. stock market.
United States vs. Rest of the World
Combined, those factors put together mean one simple thing, Yahoo! Finance said: The world owns far more of the U.S. than the U.S. owns of the rest of the world.
What does that mean for the average American, Yahoo! Finance pondered.
All this talk about international investment accounts can feel detached from day-to-day life, but it does affect everyone’s financial realities.
As America’s obligations to the rest of the world become more expensive, the entire system is extra sensitive to the slightest pressures. That likely means consumers won’t catch a break anytime soon.
And, that puts signs of this strain on U.S. families, Yahoo! Finance noted.
For example, the website said, mortgage rates aren’t likely to fall.
Ways to Save
It’s the opposite, Yahoo! Finance said. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rose to 6.56% in late May — the highest level since August 2025, substantially above the sub-3% rates many homeowners locked in during 2020 and 2021.
Yahoo! Finance offered some ways to save.
It said the key is not to accept the first offer on the table — shop around and get quotes from at least two to three lenders. According to researchers, borrowers who take the time to compare offers and secure the best available rate can save an average of $62,572 over the life of a 30-year fixed mortgage.
