On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal condemned President Donald Trump’s plan for a sovereign wealth fund, saying the idea “deserves to die in Congress.”
Trump provided “scant details” on what the fund would entail when earlier this week he signed an executive order to start developing the government-owned investment arm, the newspaper’s conservative editorial board wrote.
While Trump’s order claimed it would “promote fiscal sustainability,” “establish economic security for future generations, and promote United States economic and strategic leadership internationally,” the Journal argued it would more likely “take resources from the private economy, fund political boondoggles, and mess with the business decisions of private companies.”
Sovereign wealth funds are normally operated by countries with surplus revenues but the U.S. “perennially runs budget deficits,” it added.
The fund would “merely be one more way for the government to commandeer private wealth for political purposes. It will destroy more wealth than it creates,” it warned. Read the full piece here.
It’s the latest criticism that’s been leveled at Trump from the Rupert Murdoch-owned media outlet, which has been opposed to the president’s now-postponed hike in tariffs on Canada and Mexican imports — and which it described in a headline as “The Dumbest Trade War In History.”
Trump’s pulling of security protection from former top aides was “vindictive” and a “new low,” the newspaper said last month.