The Encyclopedia Britannica’s explanation of communism is as follows: “communism, political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society.”

Note the “means of production.” That’s businesses. During his second term in office, President Trump has taken federal ownership stakes in a number of businesses. At the Ron Paul Institute, former congressman and presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul calls out Trump’s increasing interference in markets via federal ownership of the means of production. He writes:

Despite regularly denouncing the rising socialist menace, President Trump has been pursuing a policy arguably just as, if not more, dangerous to liberty and prosperity as anything proposed by Zohran Mamdani or Bernie Sanders: using government funds to purchase partial ownership of private companies.

The Trump administration has obtained ownership interests of approximately 27 billion dollars in 30 companies since January of 2025. While President Trump and his defenders claim making these “investments” will benefit the American people, the truth is this policy will harm most Americans. The policy distorts the capital markets by incentivizing investors to support these companies because the investors believe government’s ownership interest creates a de facto government guarantee of a stock’s value. For example, after the government announced it would acquire ten percent ownership in chip manufacture Intel, the company’s stock price had a big increase.

Paul goes on to call out Republicans in Congress for their failure to rein in the President. Read more here.