Trump creates US Sovereign Wealth Fund to make America’s money work for Americans

President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order calling for the creation of a sovereign wealth fund for the United States that could be used to acquire Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok.

On Monday, Trump directed officials to develop a plan to create a government-owned investment fund similar to those used by other countries that according to a White House fact sheet “will help maximize the stewardship of our national wealth.”

“It’s a very exciting event. We’re going to have a sovereign wealth fund, which we’ve never had. We have a lot of things that create wealth,” Trump said.

“I think in a short period of time, we’d have one of the biggest funds,” the president said from the Oval Office during a signing ceremony that was attended by “legendary” media mogul Rupert Murdoch and tech billionaire Larry Ellison.

Trump also suggested that TikTok could be one of the purchases, potentially saving it from being banned domestically. “I have the right to do that,” he said.

“We might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make or we do a partnership with very wealthy people, a lot of options,” he said of TikTok. “But we could put that as an example in the fund. We have a lot of other things that we could put in the fund.”

The nation’s 47th president signed an executive order on his first day in office delaying enforcement of the ban for 75 days to give the company time to find a buyer.

“Sovereign wealth funds exist around the world as mechanisms to amplify the financial return to a nation’s assets and leverage those returns for strategic benefit and goals,” the White House fact sheet explained. “The United States can leverage such returns to promote fiscal sustainability, lessen the burden of taxes on American families and small businesses, establish long-term economic security, and promote U.S. economic and strategic leadership internationally.”

While the U.S. is a newcomer to sovereign wealth funds, numerous countries around the world already have such investment pools with the data website SWF identifying hundreds of the funds that are currently in existence globally.

Norway which has over $1.7 trillion in assets and Saudi Arabia which has $925 billion are some of the largest SWFs in the world, according to figures cited by the Washington Post.

“I think in a short period of time, we’d have one of the biggest funds. And you know, some of some of them are pretty large,” Trump said. “So, that’s a big deal, huh?”

“It will be a combination of liquid assets, assets that we have in this country as we work … to bring them out for the American people,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in remarks during the event.

“The extraordinary size and scale of the U.S. government and the business it does with companies … should create value for American citizens,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said. “If we are going to buy 2 billion COVID vaccines, maybe we should have some warrants and some equity in these companies and have that grow for the help of the American people.”

“Sovereign wealth funds have been used for a huge variety of investments, such as Qatar purchasing the U.K. department store Harrods in 2010; Norway last year using its shareholder status in Tesla to vote against a $50 billion pay package for Elon Musk; and China’s largest fund helping pay for the nation’s Belt and Road Initiative for foreign infrastructure projects,” according to the WaPo.

Chris Donaldson

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