This masthead has asked the White House for further clarification.
The US already has a pension fund system called the 401k, into which employees can voluntarily make payments or opt into automatic payments by their employer.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent with Kevin Rudd at a superannuation talk at the Australian embassy in Washington in February.Credit: Michael Koziol
The Australian government and ambassador Kevin Rudd have relentlessly promoted Australia’s superannuation system to American industry, investors and the Trump administration as a source of potential capital.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attended a special superannuation summit in February at the Australian embassy in Washington, where he said he was impressed by the reliable growth of Australia’s pension funds.
“I was struck by … the confidence that you have in the growth. It’s not what one might expect for Australia,” he said. One would have expected growth to be more dependent on the price of iron ore, he said.
Australia’s superannuation sector manages the fourth-biggest pool of pension funds in the world, and the US is the number one international destination for that capital.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Bessent, director of Trump’s National Economic Council Kevin Hassett, and US Ambassador Kevin Rudd in Washington.Credit: Michael Butcher Butcher Photography 2024
Treasurer Jim Chalmers told the February summit that the super pool was “larger than the capital controlled by the sovereign wealth funds of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia – combined”.
The amount invested in the US is about $US400 billion and projected to reach $US1 trillion over the next decade.
Under the so-called Trump accounts program – a measure in the One Big Beautiful Bill – the US government will deposit $US1000 into a “trust fund” for each American child born from January 1, 2025 to the end of 2028.
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The funds will be invested in a broad stockmarket index, and families and others can add up to $US5000 a year to each account. The money can’t be withdrawn until the child turns 18. Contributions can be made from July 4, 2026, the White House says.
Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said the accounts would start “a new age of capitalism and market interest for the whole country”.
“We are going to make sure that all American families have a stake in the success of the United States of America,” he said. “People who have a stake in the system and become more and more invested in the system do not want to bring down the system, they want to make it better.”
The Dell money would use similar infrastructure to the Trump accounts but would go to children born between 2016 and 2024, and is reserved for children from zip codes with a median household income below $US150,000.
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