2026-01-20
9 分钟NPR In early January,
President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening bans on defense contractors paying dividends or buying their stock back.
This is yet another tightening of the grip on markets that we've seen under President Trump.
Yeah, like the US government's not investing in rare earth minerals companies.
It's taken a quote unquote golden share in US steel.
Quite a change from the last few decades.
So to explain this executive order,
dividends are the classic way that companies send a slice of profits to investors.
and stock buybacks to a similar thing, but through a different mechanism.
The company itself purchases shares of its own company.
That means that whoever still holds on to the remaining shares is now holding on to a higher percentage of the company.
So it raises the value of them.
Trump basically wants to restrict defense companies from rewarding their shareholders at the expense of investing in new factories.
Is this normal?
No, no, not at all for private companies.
That's why I think there's a question.
Are we nationalizing the defense industry?
Stacy Petty John is a director at the Center for a New American Security, a defense think tank.
And that question is fascinating.
Is the government starting to take over decisions that have traditionally been made by the private sector?