Trump’s “America First” Alaska Mining Deal Kind of Feels Like Socialism

(00:00.91)

Socialism, Republicans, and the rich. I’ve seen several videos and messages from some listeners in regards to Trump and some of his people out there, whether it be Lutnik, whether it be Burnham talking about America and our various different investments that we’re making. the latest and greatest boogie man, it’s been this boogie man for some time, is China.

Everything that we’re doing right now is justified because China’s going to take over the world. Where have I seen this movie before? First and foremost, okay, let’s all understand, let’s all agree with the fact that you cannot get a little bit pregnant. Can’t get a little bit pregnant. What we’re doing right now, what this administration is doing right now by taking equity stakes in companies is just that.

We cannot, we cannot claim to be a capitalist country when we’re doing such a thing. We’re battling against China. So what we’re going to do is become China. Do you think that’s really a good idea? Eric Bumover at Reason put out a great piece I want to go over today talking about a deal I mentioned yesterday in the podcast, this trilogy deal.

in Alaska. Now, again, I want to remind everybody right now, we’ve got a government that is so damn incompetent. Okay, so damn incompetent that we are $37 trillion in debt, $37 trillion debt, the government is shut down. can’t basically Congress can’t do basic function, like pass a budget can’t even do that just a routine thing what they’re supposed to do.

All they end up doing anyways, is end up passing continuing resolutions. They don’t really get anything done. So, at the same exact time, we are taking a stake, a 10 % stake in an Alaskan mining company. Now, we happen to, we happen to manage a substantial amount of money for people all over the country, all over for the world. So I’ve seen my fair share.

(02:24.75)

of private investments, partnership deals over the years that people try to get my clients involved with. Let’s just say that. This company Trilogy Metals. me, honestly, I really don’t know much about it. I don’t know. No one’s calling me up. I haven’t seen a pitch deck on Trilogy Metals.

Trilogy Metals is going to get $35.6 million from the Trump administration. 35.6 million. In return, federal government is going to own 10 % of the company and have the option to buy another 7.5 % at a later date. Now, I’m looking at this and I’m saying to myself, $35.6 million would be

pretty frank with everybody. That’s bloody chump change. I can raise that in an afternoon.

$35.6 million. Again, I see a decent enough deal. It’s going to come across my desk. It’s going to make sense. Yeah, I could come up with that money in an afternoon with our clients. It’s not a problem. $35.6 million. Being honest, pretty much chump change. Chump change. Anyway, neither here nor there. That’s not the point.

Well, it’s great that we’re getting a great deal. That’s not what the government is supposed to do. OK, that’s what they do in China. These deals are supposed to be offered to we the people. But wait a second, we’ll talk about this a little bit further. The White House has decided that, you know, cobalt, copper, other critical minerals are national security concerns.

(04:23.566)

I’m not saying that they are not national security. I’m not saying that they are not critical metals. But does that mean that the government needs to have a stake in those companies?

(04:39.694)

I know, then that makes sense to me. Which it to me that we obviously want to we don’t produce enough here in the United States, but there’s other places around the world that friendly nations that maybe we might want to deals with along with the fact that make it more viable here in the United States. And I’ll get into that a little bit. Just because Trilogy is doing something that is important.

vital for U.S. national security according to the administration. I’m not arguing that point. Doesn’t mean that the United States government should be doing it.

Do you think that…

Do think our military, our military would be our military type of equipment that we have, technology that we have, if it was done by the United States government or done by the private sector? Just throwing that out there.

Seriously. This is the same United States government where our air traffic controllers are still using software and computers dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, floppy disks, all sorts of stuff. You think that would be that advanced?

(06:06.06)

Anyway, again, why would an institution, like ours, like our government, is again as defunctional as all hell, can’t pass a budget, $37 trillion in debt. They’re smart enough, these people in Washington, DC are smart enough to make investments on our behalf. Now it’s again, Trump’s take is different than the handouts and giveaways that we’re used to seeing from Republican.

Presidents and Democrat presidents can take a look at the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Obama’s little plan there to finance all of these green tech companies. Inflation Reduction Act with Biden, all this good stuff. They usually just sprinkle money around. And I hate that, as you well know. I made that perfectly clear here on the program. Public-private partnerships are nonsensical, quite frankly. This is where, you know,

we start getting issues and this is how you get the left angry. There’s another little side part to this as well. Again, this is where socialism, socialism always benefits the wealthy more than anybody else and I’ve made that perfectly clear. You can take a look. Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie would have loved.

would have loved for the government and socialized oil. He would have loved it. He would have been the only game in town. This is what we have done over the past three decades. We’ve slowly but surely socialized certain industries here in this country. What do you think too big to fail is?

Those companies are omnipotent.

(07:59.214)

They’re omnipotent. They can borrow money at rates that governments around the world can’t borrow money for. They’re not going anywhere. That’s not capitalism. Socialism always benefits the people at the top. Again, I often allude to it. It’s not mine. It’s George Carlin’s The Big Club. You’re not in it. I’m not in it. It is what it is. Well, I’ll tell you somebody that’s in The Big Club.

John Paulson. John Paulson was he was on a short list to lead the Treasury Department. He is a big Trump donor. He lives down in Palm Beach. He owns eight point seven percent of Trilogy. His shares in the company were worth thirty million dollars a couple of days ago. They’re worth over one hundred million dollars. Today.

Now, am I saying? Am I saying that Trump invested in Trilogy to help out his buddy John Paulson? No, I can’t say that, but you’re gonna certainly have a lot of leftists come out there and say it for Crying Out Loud. It was in Forbes Magazine for Crying Out Loud. It’s going to get out there. It’s just not a very good look. And that’s part of the problem why you don’t do this.

You don’t do this, you don’t do this whether you’re Democrat, you don’t do this whether you’re Republican. I made that point, I said one of the best investments one could have made prior to Obama to being elected was to just donate money to Obama, open up some sort of green company, he was gonna cut you a check. It was gross, it’s gross then, it’s gross now. And just because the United States, the federal government’s getting a stake in the company doesn’t make it better.

rather than a cash giveaway, like a bonus, it’s actually more social. It’s got a greater, greater tint of socialism than just handing companies money, quite frankly.

(10:16.204)

The importance, again, we’re told that this company and again, like I said, this is Eric Bame today in Reason. He says, the importance of Trilogy’s work is actually an argument against giving the government even a minor stake in what it does. It should be experts in resource extraction and logistics who run mining companies, not bureaucrats or worse, officials doing favors for friends.

And I don’t care. Okay. Not a lot of faith in government anywhere at this point in time. Not the time to be doing any of this nonsense at all. Let me tell you what Trump did that was on the up and up, which we need more of. This is what Trump should be doing. Trump approved permits for a 211 mile road that will provide access to the remote part of Alaska where Trilogy is hoping to mine all that cobalt, copper, and more. That’s

That’s the right thing to do. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Okay? Doesn’t require the federal government owning a damn thing. Okay? You make it easy to do business. There’s a big difference between the two. Let the government, you you do what you do. You issue permits. You’re not good, our government’s not good at running companies. Okay? They’re not good at…

running themselves for crying out loud.

This again, not a good look. It’s going to get twisted because again, that’s what happens in politics, but it shouldn’t happen in the first place. Need to keep the government out of the private sector. That used to be something that conservatives stood for. Watchdogonwallstreet.com.