What can one learn from the following figure?

Answer:

The figure shows the U.S. current account and net foreign wealth from 1977 until 1996.

It shows that a string of current account deficits in the 1980s reduced America’s net foreign wealth until, by the end 1996, the country had accumulated a substantial net foreign debt. In 1987 the country became a net debtor to foreigners for the first time since World War I.