The net international investment position (NIIP) of a country is the stock of the net claims of that country vis a vis the rest of the world. Roughly, it is our claims on them minus their claims on us. For the US, the NIIP was very positive at the beginning of the 1980s. This reflected past net saving the US had done vis a vis the rest of the world. According to BEA data, by the end of the 1980s this accumulated saving had not only been exhausted, but the US had gone substantially into debt. The same data suggests the net US debt to the rest of the world is currently about 2.5 trillion dollars.