The US has, traditionally, offered a warm welcome to refugees to its shores. Indeed, according to Emma Lazarus – the poet whose words adorn the base of the Statue of Liberty – the “Mother of Exiles” exhorts the “ancient lands” with their “storied pomp” to send over “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”.

European sovereign, supranational and agency borrowers may not fulfil any of the above criteria, but, since the beginning of the year, they have been just as eager to come to the US as an earlier generation of immigrants. A mountain of dollar debt has been sold by such credits in the past four weeks, some of them issuing under the 144a format for the first time.