Clinton Says Market Losses Are Wakeup Call on Foreign-Held Debt

March 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government needs to take action to address the amount of foreign-held U.S. debt after receiving a ``wakeup call'' in the form of a global market selloff, New York Senator Hillary Clinton said.

Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, said stock losses spurred by a plunge in Chinese shares this week illustrated the vulnerability of the U.S. economy. In a Feb. 28 letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, she said the U.S. can ``too easily be held hostage'' to economic decisions made in foreign capitals.

"The level of our public debt that is now held by central banks and foreign governments is a problem,'' Clinton said in an appearance on the CNBC television channel yesterday. "I don't want the administration to ignore this wakeup call.''

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