Musician Nicki Minaj attends the Treasury Department's Trump Accounts Summit with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, left, at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on Jan. 28, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump touted the coming generation of “Trump Account children” Wednesday as the administration aims to deflect attention from rising food prices and a deadly federal immigration crackdown that in recent weeks took the lives of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.
The day-long U.S. Treasury Department event in Washington, D.C., brought together big names from corporate America and entertainment to promote forthcoming tax-deferred investment accounts that will be available to all U.S. children — and that will be seeded with one-time $1,000 contributions from the government for babies born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028.
Trump said the accounts, enacted under the massive tax and spending cuts package in July, will be “remembered as one of the most transformative policy innovations of all time.”
“Perhaps no provision of the great, big, beautiful bill will prove more consequential than Trump Accounts,” Trump said during his roughly 45-minute speech that included a brief appearance by Grammy-nominated rapper Nicki Minaj, who has become an advocate for the policy.
Higher birth rate
Ahead of the president’s remarks, panel speakers, including White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell, framed the policy as celebratory of this year’s 250th birthday of the United States, and as a carrot to encourage a higher birth rate.
“Today and forevermore, every child born in America becomes a shareholder in America,” said Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, a California-based tech investment firm.
The Treasury event, titled the “Trump Accounts Summit,” came one day after Trump delivered remarks on the economy in Iowa, where he told voters, “I hope you remember us for the midterms.”
The event also followed days of protests and intense criticism of the administration, even from Trump’s own party, over the Jan. 24 fatal shooting in Minneapolis by federal agents of 37-year-old Alex Pretti. Pretti’s death occurred just over two weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a driver, Renee Good, 37, also amid the administration’s immigration crackdown in the Midwestern city.
An interest-bearing account for American children has drawn bipartisan support.
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., touted his own such proposal in late 2018, bringing the idea to the 2020 presidential campaign trail. Booker’s “American Opportunity Account” bill proposed $1,000 seed money from the government, with up to $2,000 in annual contributions per child, depending on a family’s income level.
In May, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, with the backing of Dell and Gerstner, proposed similar accounts for every child born in the U.S. to be seeded with $1,000 from the government. Cruz attended Wednesday’s event and received public recognition from the president.
Launch coming in July
The Trump Accounts, as named in the law, are set to launch July 5, according to the White House website, TrumpAccounts.gov.
While the accounts will legally belong to a minor, they can only be managed by a parent or guardian until a child’s 18th birthday. Parents and guardians will need to elect to open the account during tax filing season or via a government portal scheduled to launch this summer.
The accounts are structured like a traditional individual retirement account, but with different investment features and restrictions.
Annual contributions from parents and guardians, as well as their employers, are capped at $5,000 per year. Parents can elect to divert pre-tax contributions from their paychecks directly into their child’s account. Employers can match up to $2,500.
Trump told the crowd Wednesday that “dozens of major employers have signed up to add the Trump account contributions to their employee benefit packages, including Uber, Schwab, Charter Communications and many, many others.”
The government’s $1,000 seed money as well as contributions from state and local governments, and 501(c)3 organizations, will not count toward the $5,000 annual cap.
The most high-profile foundation contribution to date has come from Dell, and his wife Susan, who pledged last month to give $250 to children up to age 10 who were born before the time window to receive the government seed money. The money is targeted to children in ZIP codes where the median income is less than $150,000, Dell said Wednesday.
Trump said other companies announced “really big contributions” Wednesday, including Intel, Nvidia, Broadcom, IBM, Steak and Shake, Coinbase, Continental Resources and Comcast.
William McBride, chief economist at the Tax Foundation, told States Newsroom during an interview Tuesday that while specific federal guidance is still emerging, direct charitable contributions to individual investment accounts are “pretty much a completely new concept in the tax code.”
The Tax Foundation, a nonprofit that describes itself as nonpartisan, advocates for economic growth and simpler tax policies.
Some exceptions to penalty
The accounts are bound by certain restrictions, including a prohibition on withdrawals until age 18, when the account essentially becomes an individual retirement account subject to tax penalties for early withdrawal before age 59.5.
Penalty-free exceptions include accessing the cash for a first-home purchase, up to $10,000; birth or child adoption fees up to $5,000; and qualifying medical expenses.
“It’s aimed at trying to get families to save and grow that balance,” said Rita Assaf, vice president of retirement offerings for Fidelity Investments.
“But for those that need flexibility of cash, this is where maybe that account, depending on your goal, may not be a right account for you. For day-to-day, or, some sort of big event needs before age 18, that’s where you might want to consider other accounts,” Assaf told States Newsroom in an interview Tuesday.
Other restrictions on the account include types of investments. Eligible investments include mutual funds or exchange traded funds, or ETFs, that track the returns of large American companies, for example the S&P 500 index.
A child’s account that receives the maximum family and employer contributions of $5,000 at the start of each year could grow to nearly $200,000 by age 18, assuming a 7% annual rate of return, according to a Fidelity Investment hypothetical example, not adjusted for inflation.
If a child qualified for the $1,000 government seed money, and a parent left it untouched until age 18, the White House estimates the former minor would have $5,800 upon reaching adulthood, assuming historical returns for the S&P 500.
McBride said that while several specifics remain unclear, the accounts have “a lot of potential” and that advocates hope children from varying socioeconomic levels become more engaged in the process of creating wealth, learning how to invest money, and manage money.
“I’d say it has huge upside, and it just remains to be seen if it will actually catch on and become a way to sort of encourage a broader swath of society to participate in the benefits of capitalism, if you will.”
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