Viewed as a stand-alone incident, the Intel deal could be dismissed as unimportant. There are state-owned or partially state-owned companies around the world, after all, and some are more efficient than others.
Unfortunately, this is not a one-off. The federal government also decided to take a 15 percent share in MP Materials, a company that mines rare-earth minerals that are essential for everything from smartphones to guided missiles. You might think that is essential for America’s national security, because China has such a large presence in that sector and the military applications of these rare-earth minerals are many.
Just last week, however, the Trump administration announced it would be taking a 5 percent stake in two different lithium mining ventures. The good news is that major lithium deposits are being discovered around the world, making this kind of U.S. government involvement unnecessary for national security reasons. The bad news is that our government still is treating this as a national emergency…
Last week, the Trump administration announced an arrangement in which Pfizer would cut pharmaceutical prices in return for some tariff relief. Reuters has reported that the Trump administration is now planning various kinds of deals with up to 30 industries.
To make sure the new deals stick, there is a plan in the works to formalize them and make it so this is how the U.S. government deals with businesses going forward. To that end, the Trump administration wishes to greatly expand the financing and authority of what was previously a minor institution, namely the International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).
The DFC was created in 2018 to help finance projects in developing nations. But under the proposed expansion, it would establish an equity fund to cement federal government ownership of key parts of American industry. This means that our federal government would move away from its longstanding and beneficial stance of letting private ownership stay private.
