President Trump on Monday directed secretaries to start a course of to create an American sovereign wealth fund, suggesting it might partially personal the favored app TikTok.
The president signed an govt order within the Oval Workplace to have Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick create and lead such a fund.
“It’s a very exciting event. We’re going to have a sovereign wealth fund, which we’ve never had,” the president mentioned. “We have a lot of things that create wealth and you’re seeing that over the last two weeks, I think we’ve created more wealth.”
Bessent referred to as the fund “very exciting” and mentioned a fund will likely be created inside the subsequent 12 months, noting it can goal to monetize the asset facet of the U.S. stability sheet and “put the assets to work.”
“TikTok — we’re going to be doing something, perhaps, with TikTok, and perhaps not, if we make the right deal we’ll do it, otherwise we won’t, but I have the right to do that,” Trump mentioned. “And we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever will make. Or if we do a partnership with very wealthy people. A lot of options, but we could put that as an example of the fund.”
The president additionally mentioned he needs to ultimately “catch” the Saudi Arabia wealth fund and argued that the U.S. can have one of many largest funds in a small time frame.
Trump has pushed to achieve a deal to maintain TikTok energetic within the U.S. and attributes his recognition on the app to his assist from younger folks within the 2024 race.
Trump signed an govt order on his first day in workplace halting for 75 days the enforcement of the legislation that required TikTok’s mum or dad firm to divest itself of the app. The ban on TikTok was set to enter impact the day earlier than Trump was sworn in, after the app’s China-based mum or dad firm, ByteDance, didn’t divest as required by a legislation handed by Congress and signed by former President Biden.
