Breaking down claim that US has secret $150T 'trust fund'
In March 2025, a rumor emerged on multiple platforms, including Bluesky (archived), X (archived) and Reddit (archived), that the U.S. had an untouched $150 trillion "national trust fund" or "endowment" waiting to be tapped into, thanks to a key provision in Title 30 of the U.S. Code (30 U.S.C.).
Link to tweet
Jim Rickards, a financial commentator who reportedly worked on Wall Street for 35 years, made the assertion during a promotional interview posted in February 2025, though the claim goes back at least as far as 2013.
Rickards publishes a financial newsletter called "Strategic Intelligence," where he made the claim in a featured video. We reached out to Rickards for comment on the claim's veracity and will update this story if we receive any response.
"Decades ago, the U.S. Congress inserted a key provision in 30 U.S.C. creating what one could call a 'national trust fund.' You can go read the sections 22 to 42 to be exact … it's pretty dry stuff," Rickards said in the video. "It's been this big secret for years. Yet over time, the estimated size of this fund has grown and grown to the point where its raw value sits near $150 trillion and counting."
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/23/150-trillion-us-trust-fund/
= new reply since forum marked as read
but a claim that the land "locked up" by either BLM, national parks, etc holds an estimated $150 T of minerals and coal that are currently "excluded" from development by those nasty environmentalists and anti-coal mining / burning people. Trump will remove the restrictions on the environmental consideration and some big mining and coal extraction companies are poised to take advantage of this and make piles of money ( the Jim Richards thing ) will be happy to tell you the names of these 5 companies if you only subscribe to his newsletter.
Little bit of 
there. OK a whole lot of
Nobody wants the coal... it is becoming less and less competitive compared to other energy sources.
Minerals... we do need some rare earth minerals, but we were getting what we need from China and Africa. One of the reasons China and Russia are doing so much meddling in Africa is the mining going on... Russia with arms and private armies to help local dictators and war lords to rule the people, and China with funding and imported Chinese workers to do the extraction.
Now we are looking to Greenland to replace China as a source for rare earth minerals. Good luck mining there, Strip mines are almost impossible in Greenland... and even underground mining is very difficult because of a lack of infrastructure and people.
In any event, this $150T "trust fund" is a load of bullshit.
