For the moment, at least, financing the U.S. budget deficit may be getting less arduous as foreign investors now own a record 80 percent of the Treasury notes due in three to 10 years.

Legislation proposed last year by North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan and Benjamin L. Cardin, then in the House of Representatives, called on the administration to respond when foreign ownership of Treasuries reaches the equivalent of 25 percent of gross domestic product. The $2.19 trillion of government debt held abroad was equivalent to 16 percent of the $13.6 trillion GDP as of March 31.

Foreign ownership of stocks and bonds issued in the United States (public and private) now exceed American-owned assets abroad by about $2.5 trillion. Indeed, voracious foreign demand for American securities is widely credited with supporting the dollar and keeping down interest rates in an era of bloated U.S. budget deficits and anemic domestic savings. Yet, ironically, when measured against the benchmark of an ideally diversified portfolio, there is actually substantial foreign bias against holding assets in dollars.

One might expect unbiased foreign investors to hold 45 percent of their equity portfolios in U.S. stocks, because U.S. stocks account for 45 percent of the value of equities traded worldwide. Similarly, foreign investors should hold about 38 percent of their bond portfolios in U.S. bonds, if they diversified according to the relative size of national markets. But their holdings of U.S. securities are far more modest.

Ownership of U.S. equities in foreigners’portfolios ranges from less than 1 percent in 14 countries to a maximum of 29 percent in the Netherlands. The figures are equally dramatic for bonds, with only China exceeding the 38 percent benchmark. Thus, in an important sense, only China is really going out of its way to finance U.S. deficits.