EU

Some years ago, the US started discussions about using 401K money to finance government but this was considered a nonstarter. Total US retirement assets reached $42.4 trillion by the end of 2024. This is more than enough to pay off the $36 trillion national debt but most Americans are not willing to use their personal savings as collateral for government spending. Enter the European Union. As the US tells the EU to start taking on more responsibility for their own defense, they do not want to raise taxes to finance and they are considering using private savings. What was once considered to be a ridiculous idea is now in the conversation. EU president Ursula von der Leyen sent a letter explaining her plan which she calls ReArm Europe. This is why today I have written a letter to Leaders ahead of Thursday's European Council. This is why we are here together today. And I have outlined in this letter to the leaders the ReArm Europe Plan. This set of proposals focuses on how to use all of the financial levers at our disposal – in order to help Member States to quickly and significantly increase expenditures in defence capabilities. Urgently now but also over a longer time over this decade. There are five parts to this. The first part of this ReArm Europe plan is to unleash the use of public funding in defence at national level Italy’s Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti has proposed a groundbreaking plan to mobilize up to €200 billion of private defense investment