We examine the spillover effect of speeches delivered by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors on sovereign credit risk and find that the tone of speeches – especially those that are forward-looking negatively impacts sovereign credit spreads. Cross-sectionally, the impact is stronger for countries with high external debt and those with high exchange rate stability. The negative relationship between Fed speech tone and sovereign spreads is exacerbated in the presence of monetary policy shocks, economic policy uncertainty, and a loose monetary policy stance, and is likely channeled via the macroeconomic content embedded in speeches. We also show that Fed speeches delivered 1–4  weeks prior to FOMC meetings contain advance information, which can be used to explain variation in CDS spreads around FOMC announcements. We further decompose the sovereign credit spread to examine the impact of speeches on the credit risk premium and find a significant positive impact on it. Our results indicate that while Fed speeches contain important information about economic conditions in the US, they can have a major influence on the perceived creditworthiness of other countries as well.