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

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Trump’s $35 million investment in an Alaskan mining company sounds patriotic—but it’s crossing into dangerous territory. In this episode:

• How the Trump administration took a 10% government stake in Trilogy Metals—and an option for more
• Why “fighting China” shouldn’t mean becoming China with government-owned industries
• The long history of public-private “partnerships” that enrich the elite while taxpayers take the risk
• How socialism always benefits the wealthy—from Carnegie to “too big to fail” to today’s Big Club
• Why government should permit business, not own it—and how this move blurs conservative lines

Even if the goal is national security, government equity in private companies is socialism in disguise—and it’s a bad look for an administration that promised to drain the swamp.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact that we'll have on everyday Americans, author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst and trader Chris.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Markowski, Socialism, Republicans, and the rich. See several videos and
messages some of the listeners in regards to Trump and
some of his people out there, whether it be Lutnik,
whether it Burnham talking about America and our various different

(00:34):
investments that we're making. And the latest, well, the latest
and greatest boogeyman it's been this boogeyman for some time,
is China. Everything that we're doing right now is justified
because China is going to take over the world. Aware,
have I seen this movie before? First and foremost, Okay,

(00:57):
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

(01:18):
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. Did you think that's really a good idea?
Eric Bowmover at Reason put out a great piece I
want to go over today talking about a deal I

(01:40):
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 and competent, Okay,
so damn and competent that we are thirty seven trillion
dollars in debt. Thirty seven trillion dollars in debt. The
government is shut down. They can't basically, Congress can't do

(02:03):
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 into passing containing resolutions.
They don't really get anything done. So at the same
exact time, we are taking a steak, a ten percent
steak in an Alaskan mining company. Now we happen to

(02:32):
we happen to manage a substantial amount of money for
people all the country, all over for the world. So
I've seen my fair share 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.

(02:54):
Let me honestly, I really don't know much about it.
I don't know. No one's call me up. I haven't
seen a pitch deck on Trilogy Medals. Trilogy Medals is
going to get thirty five point six million dollars from
the Trump administration. Thirty five point six million. In return,

(03:18):
we federal government's going to own ten percent of the
company and have the option to buy another seven point
five percent at a later date. Now I'm looking at
this and I'm saying to myself, thirty five point six
million dollars, and be pretty frank with everybody, that's what
a chump change. I can raise that in an afternoon.

(03:42):
Thirty five point six million dollars. 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
put that money in an afternoon. The client's not it's
not a problem. Thirty five point six million dollars. Being honest,

(04:02):
pretty much, chump change, chump change anyway, neither here nor
that that. That's not the point. Well, it's great then,
and we're getting a great deal. That's not what the
government is supposed to do. Okay, that's what they do
in China. These deals are supposed to be offered to

(04:23):
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.
And I'm not saying that they are not national security.

(04:43):
I'm not saying that they are not critical medals. But
does that mean that the government needs to have a
stake in those companies? I I you know, don makes
sense to me, which to me that we obviously want
to We don't produce enough here in the United States.

(05:04):
But there's other places around the world that friendly nations
that maybe we might want to sign 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

(05:25):
for US national security according to the administration, I'm not
arguing that point doesn't mean that the United States government
should be doing it. Did you do think that do
you think our military, our military would be our military

(05:45):
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 the same United States government where you know,
our air traffic controllers are still using you know, software

(06:09):
and computers dating back to the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties,
floppy discs, all sorts of stuff. You think that would
be that advanced anyway, Again, why why would an institution
up what do you like? Hours like our government, which

(06:29):
is again as to functional as all hell, can't pass
a budget thirty seven trillion dollars in debt. They're smart enough,
these people in washingtonc Are smart enough to make investments
on our behalf. That's again, Trump's take is different than
the handouts and giveaways that we're used to seeing from
Republican presidents and Democrat presidents. Could take a look at

(06:52):
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Obama's little plan there
to finance all of these green tech companies, Inflation Reduction
Act with Buiden, all this good stuff. These are just
sprinkle money around, and I hate that. As you will know,
I've made that perfectly clear here on the program. Public
private partnerships are nonsensical. Quite frankly, this is where this

(07:19):
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,
it's socialism always benefits the wealthy more than anybody else.

(07:40):
And I've made that perfectly clear. You could take a look, okay,
Andrew Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie would have loved, would have loved
for the government and socialized OI. 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.

(08:01):
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. They're omnipotent. They can borrow money at
rates that that governments around the world can't borrow money for.
They're not going anywhere. That's not capitalism. Socialism always benefits

(08:29):
the people at the top. Again, I often allude to it.
It's not mine, it's George Carlin's 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

(08:52):
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

(09:17):
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 going to 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

(09:38):
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 democratic, it is where you're a Republican. I
mean 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 going to cut you

(10:00):
a check. It was gross. It's gross. Then it's gross now.
And just because the United States, a 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 so.
It's got a greater tint of socialism than just handing

(10:26):
companies money. Quite frankly, the importance again we're told that
this company and again, like I said, this is Eric
Bam 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

(10:50):
experts and 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

(11:10):
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
two hundred and eleven 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 the

(11:31):
right thing to do. That's what you're supposed to do. Okay.
Does it 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 do what
you do, You issue permits. You're not good at government's

(11:55):
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 that again,
that's what happens in politics. But it shouldn't happen in

(12:17):
the first place. Need to keep the government out of
the private sector. That used to be something that conservatives
stood for. Watchdog on Wall Street dot Com