Growing International BDS Movement Against Trump's America

Trump Vows ‘Big Retaliation’ as ‘Sell America’ List Grows
By Martin Baccardax

Jan 22, 2026, 12:25 pm EST

 

President Donald Trump, shown following his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP / Getty Images)

Other funds, including Denmark’s AkademikerPension, are selling US Treasury portfolios. But Norway’s Norges Bank Investment Management is sticking with the U.S. market.

One of the biggest public investors in the world has trimmed its exposure to U.S. assets in yet another indication that the “sell America” trade is taking root in global capital markets.

President Donald Trump, however, had some harsh words for those who might want to mimic it.

“There would be a big retaliation on our part,” Trump told Fox Business News during an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos when asked if he was concerned that European countries might dump U.S. Treasuries.

“We have all the cards,” he said.

The U.S. has a lot of cards, of course, but a lot of IOUs as well. Overall debt is forecast to rise past $50 trillion over the coming decade, according to estimates from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. A good chunk of that money will come from foreign investors.

But some are starting to think twice about financing America’s ballooning deficits, particularly in the wake of a foreign-policy blitz that has rattled NATO allies in Europe, raised the prospect of annexing Canada as the “51st state,” and threatened military action in Central and South America.

“Donald Trump’s remarks at the Davos Forum come at a moment when markets are already highly sensitive to political risk, and they help explain why global investors are reassessing their exposure to U.S. assets,” said John Murillo, chief business officer at B2Broker.

“We are already seeing early signs of a ‘Sell America’ narrative gaining traction, with capital rotating out of U.S. equities and Treasuries,” he added. “The result is higher bond yields, tighter financial conditions, and reduced liquidity for businesses that rely on stable access to capital.”

Jo Taylor, who runs the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, a public-sector behemoth with around $200 billion in assets under management, told Bloomberg TV on Thursday that it scaled back its investment in U.S. assets early last year and has held them at similar levels since then.

“We thought we were a little exposed to the dollar and to U.S. Treasuries, so we’ve cut them both,” Taylor said. “The U.S. is still around 30% of our overall portfolio and remains an important territory for us in terms of further capital.”

But that might not mean more Treasury purchases. Others have expressed a similar view.

Denmark’s AkademikerPension fund, which also serves teachers and academics, said earlier this week it would sell its $100 million U.S. Treasury portfolio, while the Greenland-based SISA Pension fund has said it may follow suit.

However, the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, the $2.1 trillion Norges Bank Investment Management, is staying put.

“Our presence in the United States reflects the size of the U.S. market,” Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday. “I think that’s the best way for a very long-term fund.”

Looking ahead is good, of course, but the vista investors must now contemplate is replete with a host of issues that are both unique to U.S. markets and concerning to a longer term outlook.

Tech stocks, which have powered the vast bulk of stock market gains over the past three years, carry uncomfortable political risks. The White House used its bully pulpit to take a 10% stake in Intel, and demanded a cut of Nvidia’s.

President Trump’s key criterion in selecting a new Fed chair, meanwhile, is the delivery of lower interest rates. This will add downward pressure on short-term Treasury yields while extending the rise of longer-dated yields. That distorts the ability of any investor to predict returns in a blended bond portfolio.

The same could be said for commodities. They are tied to tariffs risks, as in the case with gold, silver and copper, and unpredictable seizures and embargoes, as is the case with oil and gas.

The U.S. isn’t, and won’t ever become, an uninvestible risk. But at the margins, which are significant in a stock market valued at $48 trillion and Treasury debt valued at $30 trillion, small exits matter. And over time, they can become concerning.

“When you have conflicts, international geopolitical conflicts, even allies do not want to hold each other’s debt,” legendary investor Ray Dalio told CNBC earlier this week. “They prefer to go to a hard currency. This is logical and it’s factual, and it’s repeated throughout the world history.”

Write to Martin Baccardax at martin.baccardax@barrons.com