President Donald Trump took the first step towards setting up a sovereign fund for the United States and suggested that he could end up buying Tiktok.
The president signed a decree on Monday to start the process, saying that the American fund would soon be “one of the largest”.
More than 90 countries have sovereign funds, investing in surplus income for the benefit of future generations. However, the United States manages a budget deficit.
“We are going to create a lot of wealth for the fund,” Trump told journalists, without clarifying where the money would come from.
When Trump launched the idea of a sovereign fund during his electoral campaign, he suggested that he could be funded by “tariffs and other smart things”.
He has already announced his intention to impose prices on imports from the three largest American trade partners – China, Mexico and Canada.
But Tuesday, the samples from Mexico and Canada were interrupted for 30 days.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the fund would be set up in the next 12 months and that the plan was to monetize the assets currently held by the American government “for the American people”.
Saudi Arabia and Norway have two of the greatest sovereign funds in the world, supported by the product of fossil fuel sales. They invest in companies and projects around the world.
President Trump previously declared that an American sovereign heritage fund would finance “great national efforts”, including infrastructure projects such as airports, roads and medical research.
After having signed the executive decree of the creation of the fund, he also launched the idea that she could buy the Tiktok social media platform.
The social media company belonging to Chinese was briefly offline in the United States last month, for national security problems, after the previous administration ordered its owner to sell its American operations or to face a ban.
Trump delayed the ban, promising to find a solution, after Tiktok American users protested his stop.
“We are going to do something, maybe with Tiktok, and maybe not,” said Trump. “If we do the good deal, we will. Otherwise, we cannot … we could put it in the sovereign fund.”
However, the president also recently said that the Microsoft technology giant was in discussion to acquire Tiktok and that he would like to see an “auction war” on the sale of the social media application.
Other big names in technology, including Larry Ellison and Elon Musk, have also been launched as possible buyers.
