Trump's trade deal with Japan includes a $550 billion fund that he will oversee

Trump administration officials started filling in the blanks on the Japanese investment pot on Wednesday, which resembles a sovereign wealth fund that some rich nations like Norway and Saudi Arabia have. Trump signed an executive order earlier this year directing the Treasury and Commerce Departments to begin work assembling one.

“We're going to create a lot of wealth for the fund. And I think it's about time that this country had a sovereign wealth fund,” Trump said in February.

That process could be well underway. A pair of Trump officials said the vast majority of the revenue will flow to the U.S. government and Japan only receives a small slice.

"The Japanese will finance projects chosen by the United States, we'll give it to an operator who runs it and the profits will be split 90% to the United States of America and 10% to Japan,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg TV on Wednesday. He laid out an example where the U.S. directs Japan to invest in American pharmaceutical or semiconductor production.

Lutnick added: "They basically bought down their tariff rate by this commitment of 'We will back what you the president and what you America want to build.. that are key to national security concerns."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mirrored those comments as well. He said the Japanese government had secured a lower tariff rate due to the sizable spending they were willing to undertake on U.S. projects through a blend of equity and loan guarantees.

“They got the 15% rate because they were willing to provide this innovative financing mechanism,” Bessent said in a separate Bloomberg interview.

It’s not yet clear whether the Japanese government had signed off on those exact terms. CNBC reported Wednesday on a photo posted on X $TWTR by White House advisor Dan Scavino that showed different figures for the size of the fund as well as the profit-sharing than Trump touted. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lutnick suggested the fund could be a model for other trade deals, but he didn't believe Brussels would agree to it. "That's up to them to negotiate," Lutnick said. "Europe's not gonna give $1 trillion to invest in America.