"Well the interesting thing here … is those dollars actually come back to the U.S.," says Dr. Walden, a North Carolina Cooperative Extension specialist. "Now they can come back in two different ways: One they come back by foreigners using those dollars to buy U.S. products and services. Or they can come back by foreigners using those dollars to purchase U.S. investments.

"Now statistics show that most of the dollars have actually gone into the second alternatives," he adds. "Foreigners who have those dollars due to oil sales are buying U.S. investments -– things like stocks, bonds and other investments. So really the way to look at this we are trading some of our investments –- stocks, bonds, mutual funds -- in order to purchase foreign oil."