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With a new sovereign wealth fund, US President Trump is redefining the relationship between the state, the market and capital: tariff revenues are being channelled into strategic investments to secure growth and geopolitical influence. “The example is already setting a precedent worldwide,” says Thorsten Fischer, Managing Director and Head of Portfolio Management at Moventum AM. “Many investors want to ride the wave rather than merely watch from the sidelines.”

US President Donald Trump has announced the creation of a sovereign wealth fund, financed by tariff revenues and state assets. The initiative is intended to pursue several goals simultaneously: first, stabilising public finances in light of roughly 38 trillion dollars in national debt; second, funding tax relief for voters; and third, financing strategic investments in infrastructure, technology and industry, in order to make the United States more economically independent and to counter rivals such as China.

“Financial sovereignty is the new form of national strength,” the US Treasury stated. According to the independent Monetary Investment Review (MIR), the fund is seen as a signal to international investors and partner states: economies without their own strategic capital pools will increasingly be viewed as “warning signs” of market risk.

“The US initiative has several precedents and is already inspiring imitators,” Fischer explains. India, for example, is examining the establishment of a 50-billion-dollar fund for global strategic investments. Following corruption protests, the Mongolian government has set up a 1.5-billion-dollar fund to support renewable energy, data centres and special economic zones. Kenya is relying on a commodity-backed sovereign fund to promote infrastructure projects and reduce dependence on external aid. Indonesia, meanwhile, manages more than one trillion dollars through the Danantara Fund. The world’s seventh-largest sovereign wealth fund controls all state-owned enterprises and acts as a key driver of national industrialisation and employment policy.

“These developments carry significant implications for investment strategy,” says Fischer. As geopolitical instruments of power, sovereign wealth funds are no longer passive; their capital allocation increasingly follows strategic interests rather than purely market logic. A global contest is emerging not only for returns but also for influence. “Financial sovereignty” is joining energy autonomy as a geopolitical objective. “While the US and India can ease pressure on their budgets through asset monetisation, Europe remains reliant on traditional deficit financing, which investors view sceptically,” Fischer notes. Regions such as the EU – lacking a coordinated investment strategy – are therefore likely to be among the losers.

Sectors expected to benefit include infrastructure, energy, technology, AI, defence, raw-material processing, and US manufacturing. “Demand for bonds, green bonds and public-private partnerships is therefore likely to rise globally,” Fischer says, “along with interest in private equity, real assets and infrastructure ETFs.” In the short term, these funds stimulate growth. “In the long term, however, they carry risks,” Fischer cautions. “If returns are weak or fail to materialise, the funds could increase public debt – and indirectly contribute to inflation.”