{"id":386409,"date":"2025-08-31T03:49:24","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T03:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/386409\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T03:49:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T03:49:24","slug":"trump-youngkin-and-bernie-agree-us-should-acquire-stake-in-defense-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/386409\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump, Youngkin and Bernie agree: US should acquire stake in defense companies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government\u2019s acquisition of private companies was long considered a taboo in American politics, but that\u2019s changed under President Donald Trump in the wake of a deal that converted<\/a> $11 billion in Biden-era Chips Act grants into the US owning a 10% stake in Intel.<\/p>\n

But similar federal investments could expand soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, there\u2019s a monstrous discussion about defense. I mean Lockheed Martin makes 97% of their revenue from the U.S. Government,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said this week on CNBC<\/a>. “They are basically an arm of the U.S. Government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Virginia is the second largest recipient of federal defense spending, over $68 billion dollars in 2023<\/a>. And Lockheed Martin has<\/a> about 2,800 employees and pays nearly $600 million in annual salaries across the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

In a statement Lockheed said they will \u201ccontinue a strong working relationship\u201d with Trump as they did in his first term.<\/p>\n

And if that means taking over part of the company? Governor Glenn Youngkin says it\u2019s not a bad idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government, in so many times, is providing extraordinary support for a company and in return there should be a return on that investment, and I think American taxpayers deserve that,\u201d the Virginia governor told reporters Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Federal takeovers aren\u2019t unheard of; in 2009 President Barack Obama invested billions<\/a> in the U.S. mortgage industry to avoid a wave of foreclosures and the nation is still receiving dividends from those investments.<\/p>\n

But it may be the first time Youngkin has agreed with Senator Bernie Sanders. In a statement sent to Reuters<\/a> shortly after Trump\u2019s Intel deal, the Vermont Independent said quote “If microchip companies make a profit from the [federal] generous grants, [American] taxpayers\u2026 have a right to a reasonable return on that investment.”<\/p>\n

This report, provided by\u00a0<\/b>Virginia Public Radio<\/b><\/a>, was made possible with support from the\u00a0<\/b>Virginia Education Association<\/b><\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government\u2019s acquisition of private companies was long considered a taboo in American politics, but that\u2019s changed under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-386409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115121341398312554","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}