Glenn Beck

Japan is a country we've kept alive for a couple of reasons.

One of them is they are a gigantic buyer of American IOUs.

You'll hear them talked about as bonds, okay?

But they're IOUs.

We're like, hey, we want to build this train to nowhere.

We're only going to build a miles worth of track, and we're going to be $4 billion over budget, but we're telling you up front, it's not going anywhere.

We need the $4 billion, okay?

And Japan, because they needed us, Japan would go, we'll buy that.

We'll buy that.

They now hold about $1.2 trillion in treasuries.

They're the largest foreign holder.

It's not China, thank God.

It's Japan.

And that matters because their purchasing helps keep our borrowing costs from rising even faster.

But the treadmill is starting to wobble.

In late 2025 into this month, 2026, Japan's long bond yields have surged.

Japan's 40 year government bond yield moved above 4% since the first time that the bonds existed.

What does that mean?

That means if you borrowed money from Japan, you are, um, you are now, um, or if, if you, yeah, if you want to borrow money from Japan, it now is going to cost you 4%.

It used to be zero.