Pension funds in Denmark – the European country hit hardest by US president Donald Trump’s verbal aggression around Greenland – appear to be losing their appetite for US investments, with some having sold out of US Treasuries ostensibly on a negative view of fundamentals.
AkademikerPension said yesterday that it was planning to exit US government bonds by the end of the month, amid concerns that Trump’s policies had created big credit risks.
Anders Schelde, chief investment officer of the DKK164bn (€22bn) pension fund, told Bloomberg: “The US is basically not a good credit and long-term the US government finances are not sustainable.”
At the end of 2025, the Gentofte-based pension fund held around $100m (€85m) of US Treasuries, according to the news service.
PFA, Denmark’s largest pension fund, has said it sold out of US Treasuries last year and increased its US dollar hedging because of worries about the US’s unilateral approach to trade policy and the Trump administration’s repeated challenges to the central bank’s independence.
Lærernes Pension, the Danish pension fund for teachers, reduced its holdings of US Treasuries at the end of December by DKK3.5bn, buying German bonds instead.
Morten Malle, the pension fund’s CIO, said of the move that after currency hedging, German government bonds yielded a slightly higher interest rate than their US counterparts, making them a more attractive investment.
“At the same time, we see increasing uncertainty about the US long-term debt situation and the independence of the central bank, which has, of course, also been included in our considerations, and fundamentally the US administration’s economic policy is pulling in the direction of a weaker dollar,” he said.
Last week, Pædagogernes Pension (PBU) decided to pause any additional commitments to US unlisted strategies – across the spectrum of illiquid asset classes – for the time being.
Johannes Bill Ladegaard, PBU’s CIO, told IPE: “We view this as a prudent and timely strategic adjustment in light of the heightened uncertainty currently affecting the US.”
But he said the pension fund would remain invested with its existing US-based managers and continue to maintain exposure to US-focused strategies across the alternative asset class space.
IPE asked other Danish pension funds if they were considering changing their US Treasuries holdings in light of the current situation.
A spokeswoman for the statutory pension fund ATP said the pension fund had no comment on the topic, while AP Pension said it had virtually no exposure to US Treasuries.
“This has been the case for a long time, and is due to our choice to allocate to asset classes other than US government bonds,” an AP Pension spokesman said.
At Sampension, deputy CIO Jesper Nørgaard said the pension fund did not have US government bonds as part of its strategic allocation.
“It will be problematic for the US if many foreign investors start selling Treasuries”
Jesper Rangvid, professor of finance at Copenhagen Business School and co-director of PeRCent
“As for other assets (listed shares and alternative investments), we will wait and see. But the unrest is, of course, not conducive to US investments,” he told IPE.
Jesper Rangvid, professor of finance at Copenhagen Business School and co-director of the Pension Research Centre (PeRCent), told IPE his feeling was that Danish pension funds had already sold out of US Treasuries in the wake of the spring turbulence surrounding Trump’s eye-catching multilateral tariffs announcement.
“One must assume that those who still have US government bonds are rethinking these holdings, i.e. it would be natural to see the last ones selling theirs as well,” Rangvid said.
Asked whether divestment of US government bonds could be seen as a ‘weapon’ Denmark could use in the conflict with the US leadership over Greenland, he said it was not a weapon as such.
“It would be an assessment that US government bonds have become too uncertain,” he said.
“After Trump’s statements over the weekend, it’s logical to think that more could come, perhaps also regarding financial transactions, and in that light one might sell,” Rangvid said.
“But it’s clear that it will be problematic for the US if many foreign investors start selling Treasuries,” he said, adding that since the US had a huge deficit in its public budget, such a sell-off could potentially be expensive for the US.
