Net international investment position

The net international investment position (NIIP) is the difference between the external financial assets and liabilities of a country.

External assets publicly and privately held by a country's legal residents are also taken into account when calculating NIIP.

[2] Commodities and currencies tend to follow a cyclical pattern of significant valuation changes, which is also reflected in NIIP.

[3] Only six years later, in 1986, when the nation’s international investment position was at a year-end negative $107.4 billion, the U.S. became a net-debtor nation for the first time since 1914, when its nominal debt had reached $2 billion.

[4] By 1990, the U.S. was the world's largest debtor[3] By end-2020, the country’s net international-investment position was a negative $14 trillion, an amount representing how much more the U.S. owed to the rest of the world than the rest of the world owed to the U.S.[5] At the end of 2022, it stood at a negative $16 trillion.