【Davos, Switz】Bessent Says Deutsche Bank CEO Does Not Support Report on Sale of U.S. Assets

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Editor’s Note

This article reports on a statement by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent regarding a call from Deutsche Bank’s CEO to dismiss an analyst’s report suggesting potential European divestment from U.S. assets.

Treasury Secretary’s Statement

Skylar Woodhouse and Arno Schuetze
January 21, 2026

(Bloomberg) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Deutsche Bank AG CEO Christian Sewing called him to dismiss a report from one of the German bank’s analysts which suggested that European investors might divest from U.S. assets.

“The idea that Europeans would sell U.S. assets came from a single Deutsche Bank analyst,” Bessent said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “The CEO of Deutsche Bank called to say that Deutsche Bank does not support that analyst’s report.”
Analyst’s Report and Market Context

The analyst, Global Head of FX Research George Saravelos, noted in a report on Sunday that Europe might be less willing to hold U.S. assets in the face of threats from President Donald Trump regarding Greenland. He argued that such a rebalancing away from the dollar would likely limit the negative impact on the euro.

Deutsche Bank’s reaction, which operates a large business in the United States, underscores the high sensitivity surrounding the issue. Europe is the largest lender to the U.S., with holdings of $8 trillion in U.S. bonds and stocks by bloc countries, nearly double the rest of the world combined, Saravelos stated in the note.

Major U.S. benchmark stock indices fell more than 2% on Tuesday, the dollar weakened against most major currencies, and 30-year bond yields approached 5% as Trump’s threat to impose new tariffs on European allies—combined with a Japanese debt crash—rippled through markets.

Bank’s Stance and Specific Cases
“As a general rule, we do not comment on potential communications between the bank and government representatives,” a Deutsche Bank spokesperson said. “As a long-standing policy, Deutsche Bank Research is independent in its work, so the opinions expressed in individual research notes do not necessarily represent the view of the bank’s management.”

Saravelos noted in his report that Danish pension funds were among the first to reduce their dollar exposure last year.

AkademikerPension, which manages about $25 billion in retirement savings for the country’s academics, said on Tuesday that it plans to exit U.S. Treasury bonds by the end of the month, due to concerns that the Trump administration’s policies have created credit risks too large to ignore. The fund held nearly $100 million in U.S. Treasury bonds at the end of 2025.

“In an environment where the geoeconomic stability of the Western alliance is being existentially disrupted, it is unclear why Europeans would be so willing to play that role,” Saravelos wrote. “The events of recent days have the potential to further incentivize rebalancing away from the dollar.”
Historical Precedents

This is not the first time an analyst report has caused political problems for a bank. In 2021, Sewing apologized to Germany’s Finance Ministry and the country’s main regulator for harsh criticism made by one of the firm’s research analysts.

Swiss bank UBS Group AG placed its global chief economist, Paul Donovan, on leave in 2019 while trying to contain the fallout from his comments on pork in China, which sparked outrage in the country.

In 2014, Banco Santander Brasil SA, the Brazilian subsidiary of Spain’s largest bank, apologized for a note sent to some of its high-income clients which said the economy would worsen if the chances of re-election for then-President Dilma Rousseff stabilized or improved.

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⏰ Published on: January 21, 2026