Outraged at reports that the pensions of U.S. government and military retirees are about to be invested in China, President Trump is set to go all-out to stop the proposed investment approved in 2017 by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB).
Ten days after Newsmax reported that an estimated $50 billion in the International Index of the government’s retirement program would soon be invested in state-run companies in China, White House sources say the president has asked his staff to investigate any options he has to stop the investment.
The same sources told Newsmax Trump would most likely end up issuing an executive order to immediately halt the shifting of U.S. government retirement funds onto the Chinese market.
Trump’s move against the investment could come early next week, our sources said.
Such an action would demonstrate that, in his first days on the job, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has a firm grip on the president’s attention and on the staff in the West Wing.
As a Republican congressman from North Carolina, Meadows offered the legislation in the House to stop the investment of U.S. retirement funds in China.
"Mark cares deeply about this issue and he was going to do something about it at the first opportunity," a source close to Meadows told Newsmax Wednesday, "But he’ll never tell you that because he’s not giving interviews, period."
Reportedly also involved in making sure the China investment deal caught the president’s attention was White House Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger, known as the administration’s toughest hard-liner on relations with China.
The strange saga of U.S. government retirement funds on the verge of being invested in Chinese government-run businesses began in May 2017, when the five-member FRTIB voted to change the index it uses for its international funds.
This opened the door for investment in Chinese businesses of government pension money by the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), which is overseen by the FRTIB and controls an estimate $700 billion in assets.
Many of the companies that would benefit from U.S. investments, as Newsmax previously pointed out, are already sanctioned by the U.S.
Among them are the AviChina Industry and Technology Ltd., which develops fighter planes, helicopters, and unmanned aircraft systems for the People’s Liberation Army, and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Company, Ltd. which is responsible for security surveillance equipment to tighten the Chinese grip over the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. Read John Gizzi's Reports — More Here.
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