Dem Lawmaker Explains Why He's 'Excited' About President Trump's Idea For A Sovereign Wealth Fund

Forbes Breaking News

Congressman Morgan McGarvey (D-KY) joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss President Trump's sovereign wealth fund.

Transcript

00:00Hey, I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is Congressman

00:04Morgan McGarvey. Congressman, thank you so much for joining me. Excited to be here. Thanks for

00:08having me. I'm excited to speak with you because on February 3rd, President Donald Trump signed

00:14an executive order calling for the creation of a U.S. sovereign wealth fund. You introduced

00:19legislation related to the fund that I do want to talk about in a second. But before we get there,

00:25what are your thoughts? What are your feelings on an American sovereign wealth fund?

00:29Yeah, I'm excited about the prospect of a sovereign wealth fund. I mean,

00:33this is something we could use to do some really big, bold things in this country. But it really

00:40matters. It matters how we build it. It matters what we do with it. It matters who's in charge of it,

00:46what measures are in place. So again, it's something that could be really great, but we've

00:50got to do it the right way. So that leads me to your legislation, which you introduced last week.

00:56It's called the American Sovereign Wealth Fund Exploration Act of 2025. Talk to us about that.

01:02What would exactly that do?

01:05Yeah. And, you know, you and I have talked about these before, and this is an economic tool,

01:09but it's a tool. A hammer is a tool. You can use a hammer to put a nail on a wall.

01:15Don't use your hammer to fix your iPad. And so how we use it matters. How you build this thing

01:20matters. So one of the things I stress in my legislation is, first of all, let's learn the lessons from the

01:25people who've done it wrong and the people who've done it right. You've got to have transparency.

01:28You have to have accountability. You have to have oversight. I also think, as the president is

01:33talking about this, it's really important we put this into legislation. And the reason I want to do

01:38this in legislation is not only should we not have just one person in charge of it. We've seen

01:43examples in Malaysia and other places where one person being in charge of a sovereign wealth fund

01:47is a disaster. But the executive orders don't have the force of law, meaning another president

01:54could come in four years from now and undo the sovereign wealth fund. And so we've got to build

02:00it up right. We've got to make sure it's long term. We've got to make sure it has that oversight

02:03and accountability through multiple bodies. So let's talk about looking around the globe,

02:09because dozens of sovereign wealth funds globally are managing trillions of dollars. Is there anyone

02:14that you would want to replicate? Is there any more cautionary tales? I mean, what exactly does

02:19that look like? Yeah, there have been several really good ones we've looked at. Norway has,

02:23I think, sort of the gold standard of sovereign wealth funds. Alaska has a really great sovereign

02:28wealth fund. So this is not just something that foreign entities do. We have states with sovereign

02:33wealth funds right here in America. But because of the cautionary tales, because of places like Malaysia,

02:40like Venezuela, like others, there's been a group internationally that has developed guiding

02:46principles for how you should set up a sovereign wealth fund. They're called the Santiago principles.

02:51We looked heavily at these when crafting this legislation and putting together this group to

02:56look at creating an American sovereign wealth fund, because we want to make sure that there is

03:01independence, that there is oversight, that those things are there.

03:04And obviously, independence is paramount here. And your legislation would create a 25-person commission.

03:11Who exactly would be in that commission?

03:14Yeah, so we would have several representatives. And largely, the Fed's going to be involved,

03:20because there is independence there. And so we want that congressional oversight. But we want to have

03:27independence as well. And that gets, again, that independence, that accountability, that transparency,

03:31the oversight is really important to this.

03:35And I'm curious, do you have bipartisan support in this so far? What have your colleagues been saying?

03:41Yeah, I think there is bipartisan interest in this. Because again, this is an idea. This is an idea that

03:47can we do it? Does America have enough resources there, enough things that we can responsibly put money

03:55into a sovereign wealth fund? This can't be a slush fund for billionaires. This has got to be something

04:00we can grow. Norway did it, you know, of course, because they have so many natural resources that

04:05they can then tax and put those into the sovereign wealth fund. Can we do it here in this country?

04:11If we can do it, then how are we going to build it so that it actually is run correctly? And I think

04:18there is real bipartisan support with it. Now, I imagine that if it actually works, if we actually

04:24create it, then there'll be some fighting over what the sovereign wealth fund is used to support.

04:29But that's okay, we can get to that once we build it.

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