Trump says U.S. must pay off debt before creating a sovereign wealth fund

Reuters

Thu, May 15, 2025, 1:44 AM 1 min read

DOHA (Reuters) -The U.S. needs to wage disconnected indebtedness earlier establishing a sovereign wealthiness fund, President Donald Trump said connected Thursday, signalling a imaginable displacement to plans to make a money wrong a year.

"I'd alternatively wage the indebtedness disconnected and past bash the money aft the debt's paid off," Trump said successful Doha during a property conference.

Trump signed an enforcement bid successful February ordering the instauration of a sovereign wealthiness money wrong the adjacent year. He has antecedently said gross earned from tariffs connected U.S. imports could signifier the ground for a wealthiness fund.

The U.S. indebtedness presently stands astatine $36.2 trillion, according to the Treasury Department, supra the $36.1 trillion bounds acceptable by Congress successful January.

Typically sovereign funds trust connected a country's fund surplus to marque investments, but the U.S. operates astatine a deficit. Its instauration besides would apt necessitate support from Congress.

"You know, these radical person nary debt," helium said referring to the Gulf region, location to immoderate of the world's biggest wealthiness funds. "It's bully to person the fund. I accidental to Howard (Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick), we're a small aboriginal due to the fact that we person debt."

(Reporting by Andrew Mills; Editing by Elisa Martinuzzi and Alex Richardson)