The most interesting piece of economic policy from the Trump White House is not a tariff, nor is it an AI export restriction. It’s a brokerage account for babies. Under the new Trump Accounts program, eligible American children born between 2025 and 2028 will receive $1,000 from the Treasury, to be invested in a broad index of American companies. Parents, employers, and other benefactors can contribute up to $5,000 more annually. Before these children can walk or speak, they will own their slice of corporate America.
At first glance, this seems uncharacteristically left wing – as if a fever dream from Andrew Yang’s presidential platform had escaped and somehow convinced the Trump administration of its merits. But the policy reveals something entirely different about the post-2016 right. Trumpism is not merely Reaganism with poor table manners. It represents a break away from the Republican belief that the government’s role in the economy is to step aside and let prosperity take care of itself.
Trumpism is not merely Reaganism with poor table manners
The Reaganite catechism was simple: lower taxes and lighter regulation would encourage investment and raise living standards through growth. The state’s role was to create the conditions for business to thrive, indirectly benefiting the ordinary American through steady employment, cheaper goods, and rising asset values. “Trickle-down economics” was always a hostile caricature of Reagan’s ideas. The argument was never that the rich should dine while the working man waits for the crumbs; it was that growing the nation’s total wealth was more valuable than a focus on redistributing it.
Reagan’s model has an increasingly obvious flaw. A nation can get richer on paper without producing more owners. Millions of Americans work for successful firms, buy from them, and contribute to their profits without owning any meaningful share of them. Wages keep people afloat, but ownership builds wealth.
The Trump administration acknowledges this distinction. The state is no longer merely promising that a growing economy will produce opportunity for our children; it is handing them direct access to the market. The government, alongside wealthy benefactors like Michael Dell, provides the initial capital; American industry provides the returns. The Reaganite right insisted that the market would provide opportunities. The Trumpian right is putting those opportunities directly into the hands of ordinary American citizens.
There are flaws. Critics will argue that richer parents can contribute more, and that the tax advantages mean inequality will compound alongside account values. Many families won’t register or contribute at all due to a lack of knowledge. But these are all objections related to the program’s design, not its central principle. Administrative wrinkles can be ironed out as the program matures.
There is ideological precedent for programs like this one. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher’s “Right to Buy” scheme sold council houses to their tenants at steep discounts. Her privatization campaigns put shares of British Gas in the hands of the ordinary Briton. While there were criticisms, the doctrinal goal was clear; Thatcher understood that a man who owns his home will defend property rights not as an abstraction but as a matter of self interest. Ownership doesn’t simply enrich people, but it changes how they think. Trump accounts apply the same logic to a generation of Americans more sympathetic to socialism than any in living memory.
The ideological shift matters far more than the specifics. Reagan sought to raise the tide. Trump is asking who owns the boats. This is a more interventionist form of right-wing economics, but not necessarily a less capitalist one. As Peter Thiel has warned: “If you proletarianize the young people, you shouldn’t be surprised if they eventually become communist”. A capitalism that denies the young any realistic prospect of accumulating capital cannot reasonably expect their loyalty. The old right promised that the market would serve everyone. The new right is giving everyone a stake in ensuring it does.
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