Trump in office

[Herman]

The Trump administration is uprooting the United States from another large money-sink as it continues to try to put America first.

On Thursday, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent announced that the U.S. is "immediately" withdrawing from the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations-aligned organization that has cost the U.S. billions in the last decade.

"Our nation will no longer fund radical organizations like the GCF whose goals run contrary to the fact that affordable, reliable energy is fundamental to economic growth and poverty reduction," Bessent said in a statement on social media.

The Green Climate Fund is an affiliate of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The GCF was established in 2010, according to a timeline on its website.

In a press release, the Treasury Department said that while the administration "is committed to advancing all affordable and reliable sources of energy, ... the GCF was established to supplement the objectives of the UNFCCC, and continued participation in the GCF has been determined to no longer be consistent with the Trump administration's priorities and goals."

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the United States pledged $3 billion in a multi-year "replenishment" of the fund spanning from 2024 to 2027. The United States also seeded the fund at its inception, providing $2 billion, according to the same 2023 press release.

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[Herman]

[DKG]

President Donald ‍Trump on Thursday ‍said the United States will purchase $200 billion ‌in mortgage bonds, with the goal of bringing down housing costs.

"Because I chose not to sell Fannie Mae and ⁠Freddie ‍Mac in my First Term ... it is now worth many times that amount — ‌AN ABSOLUTE FORTUNE — and has $200 ⁠BILLION DOLLARS IN CASH," Trump wrote in a post on ‌Truth Social.

"I am instructing my Representatives to BUY $200 BILLION DOLLARS IN ⁠MORTGAGE BONDS. This ‌will drive Mortgage Rates DOWN, ‌monthly payments �DOWN, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable," Trump wrote.

The announcement comes after Trump on Jan. 7 said he plans on banning large institutional investors from purchasing more single-family homes in an effort to lower housing costs.

"For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American Dream. It was the reward for working hard, and doing the right thing. But now ... that American Dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans," Trump stated in that earlier post. "People live in homes, not corporations."

He added, "I have no higher priority than making America affordable again."

Over the past decade, private equity firms and investment companies have accrued large portfolios of single-family homes, contributing to high rent costs and increased home prices, according to Department of Housing and Urban Development analysts. Furthermore, data from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project as of April 2025 shows Blackstone owning more than 230,000 apartment units, with Greystar holding 138,000.

Some of Trump's policies would appeal to socialists.

[Herman]

Trump also said that at least $100 billion would be invested by major oil companies in Venezuela's energy sector and that he was scheduled to meet with senior executives from large oil firms later on Jan. 9 at the White House.

The president offered more details about the planned investment in a Jan. 8 interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity, revealing that America's top 14 oil companies are prepared to enter Venezuela and "rebuild the whole oil infrastructure" to tap the country's vast reserves for the benefit of both countries.

Venezuela, a founding member of OPEC with the world's largest proven oil reserves, has seen oil output collapse from more than 3 million barrels per day in the early 2000s to under 1 million in recent years amid mismanagement, underinvestment, corruption, and sanctions.

[Herman]

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent revealed on Thursday that the Trump administration is clamping down on extra-national remittances by individuals exploiting public assistance.

The announcement, which comes on the heels of a series of damning revelations about fraud committed by Somalis in Minnesota, could prove impactful for the crime-ridden Islamic nation of Somalia.

After all, members of the Somali diaspora sent $2.12 billion in remittances home in 2024 alone. The loss of the American portion of this funding stream would not go unnoticed for a failed nation with a GDP in the neighborhood of $12 billion.

Bessent, who is also the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, told Fox News' Laura Ingraham, "We are here to follow the money because that's what Treasury does."

"We did it with the mafia, we have done it with the cartels, and now we are going to do it with these Somali fraudsters," continued Bessent. "Treasury has something called FinCEN, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and we are coming in."

Bessent indicated that the agency is launching four investigations into money-service businesses "that we believe may have wired money out of the country — a lot of the ill-gotten, stolen money — over to the Middle East, over to Somalia. We'll see where that's going."