A question from Yahoo! Answers:

Is it true that there are countries such as saudi arabia, that have so much money invested in the usa?

for example if the saudi’s one day decided to take their money out of the usa and put in euro’s instead, basically usa closes down.

The largest foreign investor in the U.S. is Britain. Japan is catching up though. Saudi Arabia is not even on the map in any meaningful way.

Official and private holdings of U.S. Treasury securities by the entire contingent of Asian members of OPEC (including Saudi Arabia) were about $60 billion at the end of 2005; Taiwan and Korea each hold about $67 billion, Britain, $99 billion, Japan, $659 billion.

Private holdings of U.S. corporate and agency bonds by all Asian countries (including Saudi Arabia) were $399 billion, of which $264 billion were held by Japanese investors. Private holdings of U.S. corporate and agency bonds by British investors were $522 billion.

Private holdings of U.S. stocks by all Asian countries (including Saudi Arabia) were $264 billion, of which $186 billion were held by Japanese investors. Private holdings of U.S. stocks by British investors were $304 billion.

Source:

Elena L. Nguyen, “The International Investment Position of the United States at Yearend 2005”:

http://www.bea.gov/bea/ARTICLES/2006/07J…

(Tables J, K, and L)