Barack Obama’s infamous proclamation to business owners that “you didn’t build that” was already controversial, but Donald Trump has taken it a step further with his assertion that he owns the store itself.
The Financial Times recently covered an interview with President Trump in Time Magazine (“Donald Trump Claims to Have Received Call from Xi Jinping and to Have Cut ‘200 Deals’ on Trade,” Financial Times, April 25, 2025):
When questioned about his alleged conversation with Xi, Trump described his role as the gatekeeper for the U.S. consumer market. “It’s a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I’ll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay,” Trump told Time.
It appears that Mr. Trump may have confused the concepts of imports and exports, as his trade policy seems more focused on determining which suppliers his store will procure from. But let’s overlook this minor detail for now.
When a nation’s leader declares ownership of the store, it echoes a sentiment not far from Marxist theory, which advocates for collective (“social”) ownership of the means of production—retail outlets included. In this scenario, the country itself is a collective, and the store is treated as collective property. Any apparent owners of private stores may simply be benefitting from a privilege granted by the collective or acting as state agents. No one can trade with the collective store without the gatekeeper’s permission—complete with tax implications.
Invoking “the people” serves merely as a façade to legitimize state ownership of production means. True ownership implies control, and collective ownership suggests that no individual “owner” is free to sell their share; instead, they are bound to it and must bear sacrifices. In Chapter 13 of Justice and Its Surroundings, Anthony de Jasay critiques the “social ownership” narrative that underpins Marxist collectivism. The notion of owning and managing production “on behalf of the people” is nothing but a propaganda tactic. In both leftist collectivism (Marxism and socialism) and rightist collectivism (populism and fascism), the store ultimately belongs to whoever wields control over the state or acts as its agents. (The principal-agent dilemma is quite noticeable here.) A populist leader, therefore, adds a unique twist to the myth of collective ownership by suggesting that he embodies the people.
It’s worth noting that no classical liberal theorist would ever assert that the chief official of a government in a free society would “own the store.”
Who could have predicted that America’s populist leader would lean more towards Marxism than the average social democrat or socialist? This isn’t overly surprising, as both left and right prioritize collective and political choices over individual and private ones. Mr. Trump may not be a Marxist, but he certainly represents a variant of collectivism.
An alternative theory suggests that, in claiming ownership of the store, Mr. Trump was merely vocalizing thoughts without fully comprehending their implications. While economists are typically cautious about attributing such diagnoses, Jacob Sullum in a recent Reason column suggests that this might be the case.
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The owner of the USA Store sitting behind his checkout counter
