Nvidia set to become world's most valuable company in history
Shares of the leading designer of high-end AI chips were up 2.2% at $160.6 in morning trading, giving the company a higher market capitalisation than Apple's record closing value of $3.915 trillion on December 26, 2024.
Nvidia's newest chips have made gains in training the largest artificial-intelligence models, fueling demand for products by the Santa Clara, California, company.
Microsoft is currently the second-most valuable company on Wall Street, with a market capitalisation of $3.7 trillion as its shares rose 1.5% to $498.5.
Apple rose 0.8%, giving it a market value of $3.19 trillion, in third place.
A race among Microsoft, Amazon.com, Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Tesla to build AI data centers and dominate the emerging technology has fueled insatiable demand for Nvidia's high-end processors.
"When the first company crossed a trillion dollars, it was amazing. And now you're talking four trillion, which is just incredible. It tells you that there's this huge rush with AI spending and everybody's chasing it right now," said Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading.
The stock market value of Nvidia, whose core technology was developed to power video games, has increased nearly eight-fold over the past four years, from $500 billion in 2021.
Nvidia is now worth more than the combined value of the Canadian and Mexican stock markets, according to LSEG data. The tech company also exceeds the total value of all publicly listed companies in the United Kingdom.
Nvidia recently traded at about 32 times analysts' expected earnings for the next 12 months, below its average of about 41 over the past five years, according to LSEG data. That relatively modest price-to-earnings valuation reflects steadily increasing earnings estimates that have outpaced Nvidia's sizable stock gains.
The company's stock has now rebounded more than 68% from its recent closing low on April 4, when Wall Street was reeling from President Donald Trump's global tariff announcements. US.stocks, including Nvidia, have recovered on expectations that the White House will cement trade deals to soften Trump's tariffs.
Nvidia holds a weight of nearly 7.4% on the benchmark S&P 500.
AI poster child
Nvidia's swelling market capitalisation underscores Wall Street's big bets on the proliferation of generative AI technology, with the chipmaker's hardware serving as the foundation.
Co-founded in 1993 by CEO Jensen Huang, Nvidia has evolved from a niche company popular among video game enthusiasts into Wall Street's barometer for the AI industry.
The stock's recent rally comes after a slow first half of the year, when investor optimism about AI took a back seat to worries about tariffs and Trump's trade dispute with Beijing.
Chinese startup DeepSeek in January triggered a selloff in global equities markets with a cut-price AI model that outperformed many Western competitors and sparked speculation that companies might spend less on high-end processors.
In November of last year, Nvidia took over the spot on the Dow Jones Industrial Average formerly occupied by chipmaker Intel, reflecting a major shift in the semiconductor industry toward AI-linked development and the graphics processing hardware pioneered by Nvidia.
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Irish Examiner
an hour ago
- Irish Examiner
Trump claims US 'pretty much' has a deal to buy TikTok
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The Irish Sun
4 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Costly mistakes EVERYONE makes when buying new phones, TVs & Amazon gadgets – why you're losing £1000s without realising
WHETHER it's early Christmas shopping or just a treat, buying new phones, TVs, and gadgets off Amazon can end up being a costly nightmare. There are loads of simple mistakes that could be costing you thousands, from getting sucked in by flashy TV specs you don't need, ignoring a little-known iPhone menu that reveals if you're being scammed, and falling for a costly Amazon "price trick". 16 The iPhone 16 is the latest model – but you don't necessarily need it Credit: Apple 16 Refurbished schemes are an easy way to bag huge discounts on top tech – without the downsides of bagging a used phone from a mate or stranger Credit: Apple / The Sun Here are some of the biggest mistakes that you can make when you're snapping up new gadgets. PHONE SHOPPING MISTAKES Mistake 1 – Ignoring official 'refurbished' schemes It's easy to forget that buying phones isn't just a choice between a new mobile from the shop or a used one via eBay or Facebook Marketplace. There's a third (and easily missed) option: certified refurbished schemes. Many gadget makers and retailers have dedicated services where they restore used or unboxed phones so that they're basically as good as new, but with big discounts. Apple is a good example. Go to the website and look for the Certified Refurbished section There you'll find top models that have been fully tested, include a one-year warranty, a brand new box with all accessories and cables, and a fresh battery too. And they're all heavily discounted because they're "refurbished". Right now, you can get £310 savings on some iPhone 14 Pro Max models (but we've seen Samsung has a similar scheme called Certified Re-Newed iPhone 16e review – I've secretly tested Apple's cheapest mobile and I love the new button but that's not the best bit And again, you'll get gadgets in a brand new box with a cable, SIM ejector, plus a year-long warranty. Then there are third-party marketplaces like Back Market that also refurbish mobiles. So don't pay full price for a phone without checking the refurbished version too. Just remember: you might struggle to find refurbished units for the absolute-newest phone models. Mistake 2 – Buying a used phone with fake parts When you're buying a used phone from a person directly, you'll often be nabbing it at a saving. 16 Apple has set up the iPhone to show when it's packing fake parts Credit: Apple But that person might have secretly Now you've got an iPhone that might break down, not work properly, and require expensive repairs. Not only that, but it'll affect the resale value of your mobile too. You'll want to get into Settings > General > About > Parts and Service History . This will show parts of your iPhone, and whether they're legit or not. "If a part is labelled Genuine Apple Part, the part has been replaced with a genuine Apple part using genuine Apple parts and processes," Apple explained. "If a part is labelled Unknown Part, this means that the installation is incomplete. "Or the part was replaced with a non-genuine part, was previously used or installed in another iPhone, or isn't functioning as expected." If you're not seeing the menu, it means your iPhone hasn't had any parts swapped. 16 If an iPhone has been repaired, you can see in Settings > General > About > Parts and Service History Credit: Apple You should check this page before you accept the smartphone from whoever you're buying it from. "Genuine Apple parts are designed to fit precisely within the device and provide optimal performance, safety, and reliability," Apple explained. "Repairs performed by Apple and Apple Authorised Service Providers are covered by Apple's warranty. "Repairs performed by untrained individuals or using non-genuine parts might affect the functionality, safety, security, and privacy of the device." Apple adds: "Using non-genuine batteries might also result in unexpected behaviour after installation, device software updates, or while charging. "Using non-genuine batteries might also lead to safety issues." Mistake 3 – Not looking at the phone's 'software' version All phones run on an operating system, with settings, menus, and design. 16 Google's latest phone software is called Android 16 – but not all mobiles can run it Credit: Google Apple's iPhone runs on iOS and most other mobiles run on Google's Android. These operating systems are updated fairly regularly – usually receiving a major upgrade once a year. These updates are important for two reasons. The first is that they deliver new features , keeping your old mobile feeling fresh with the latest tricks. And the second is that software updates are how tech giants deliver security fixes to your phone. These fixes will close dangerous security loopholes that hackers can use to break into your device, accounts, and potentially even your finances. If your phone is too old to receive these updates, it's seriously exposed to cybercrime – not to mention missing out on new features too. So before you buy a used phone, make absolutely sure that it can still receive software updates. 16 Apple is rolling out iOS 26 to iPhones later this year, but millions of older devices will miss out Credit: Apple A quick Google search will reveal the latest iOS or Android software version, and whether your mobile can get it. For instance, only the following iPhones can get the iOS 26 update coming out in September: iPhone 16e iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhone 14 Plus iPhone 14 Pro iPhone 14 Pro Max iPhone 13 iPhone 13 mini iPhone 13 Pro iPhone 13 Pro Max iPhone 12 iPhone 12 mini iPhone 12 Pro iPhone 12 Pro Max iPhone 11 iPhone 11 Pro iPhone 11 Pro Max iPhone SE (3rd gen) iPhone SE (2nd gen) So if you buy an older iPhone than that, you're leaving yourself exposed. DON'T RISK AN ANCIENT MOBILE Here's some phone advice from The Sun's tech editor Buying a phone from last year or the year before is a savvy move to save money. But if you're snapping up a mobile that's five years old, you might be in serious danger. Make absolutely sure that it is still getting updates – and isn't cut off, or about to be. If you're left with a gadget that can't get security updates, you're an open goal for cybercriminals. They can waltz right in through unpatched security holes that are well-known in hacker communities. Free security updates are one of your best defences against hackers. So don't leave it to chance and don't leave the front door to your digital life unlocked. Picture Credit: Sean Keach It's better to buy a newer model that will still get updates for several years, to avoid having to upgrade (and paying hundreds to do so). Sure, it might be tempted to get a very old phone on the cheap – but going too far back is simply not worth the risk. TV SHOPPING MISTAKES TVs can vary wildly in price – so if you bungle your purchase, the cost of the mistake can be huge. It's not like picking the wrong pastry at Greggs, you could be throwing away hundreds of pounds. Mistake 1 – 8K? Not OK First off, watch out for telly jargon – and 8K is at the top of the list. It sounds better than 4K, right? But splashing out on 8K TV is one of the easiest ways to end up spending way more than you need to. These terms relate to the resolution of your TV's screen – that's the number of pixels. Pixels are the tiny dots that light up with colour to make up the picture that you see. If you have more of those tiny dots, your telly can show more detail. 16 Netflix has plenty of 4K telly – but you won't find any 8K movies in its library Credit: Netflix So a 720p HD TV would have a resolution of 1,280 pixels horizontally and 720 pixels vertically. That totals to 921,600 pixels across the entire screen. Here's how common resolutions compare: 720p HD (1,280 x 720 pixels) – 921,600 pixels total 1080p Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) – 2,073,600 pixels total 4K Ultra HD (3,840 x 2,160 pixels) – 8,294,400 pixels total 8K Super HD (7,680 x 4,320 pixels) – 33,177,600 pixels total More pixels mean more potential detail on your TV screen – but that's not always particularly useful. For a start, your eyes will struggle to tell the difference between 4K and 8K. You'd need to have an absolutely enormous TV, bigger than would fit in most living rooms, to see a noticeable change. Or you'd need to be sitting so close to your telly that you're basically on top of it. But that's not even the biggest problem. 16 A 4K TV is a nice happy medium when it comes to quality and pricing – very few people need an 8K telly today Credit: Samsung To enjoy a 4K picture on a 4K TV, you also need a piece of 4K content – and the same is true for 8K. There's almost no 8K content out there. In fact, loads of telly still isn't even shown in 4K, never mind 8K. It's trickier to capture and produce 8K content, and streaming it would put a much bigger strain on home internet. So no one really bothers. And even though your 8K telly will promise to "upscale" lower quality footage, this is just computer trickery – and not comparable to the real thing. So I wouldn't bother with 8K just yet. At the same time, I'd recommend picking a 4K telly over a cheaper Full HD TV. You can get 4K TVs for very cheap now, and most streaming apps (like Netflix and Amazon Video) serve up 4K content. And if you buy a Full HD telly, you'll probably want to upgrade far sooner than if you get a more future-proofed 4K – so it's worth the slightly higher upfront cost. Mistake 2 – Plug-in power Just because your TV is slow does not mean you need a new one. You'll find that loads of cheap televisions run awfully slow, taking an age to navigate through menus. You click your remote and it feels like that signal is travelling through mud. That's because one of the easiest ways to cut costs on a cheap telly is by fitting it with a budget computer processor. 16 An Apple TV 4K is a great plug-in option for your telly – and will instantly speed it up Credit: Apple If you're happy with the picture, then the far cheaper option is to buy a plug-in streamer. My personal pick is the Apple TV 4K, which costs £149 and goes into the back of your telly. It's lightning quick to navigate with, and has all the top apps you'd want (BBC iPlayer, Netflix, ITV Hub, Prime Video, Now TV and so on). But you could also bag yourself a 4K Amazon Fire Stick (£60) or a 4K Roku box (£39) and use that as your main TV interface instead. That way, you get to enjoy your TV's picture – but it's the streaming stick that's powering what you see. And it means you don't need to pay hundreds (or even thousands) for a brand new telly that runs faster. Mistake 3 – Getting the wrong kind of TV What you absolutely don't want to do is get the wrong telly for your needs. 16 Make sure you pick a telly with plenty of ports – or you might find it lacking down the line Credit: Samsung Then you'll get it, use it for a few months, and realise you've made a big mistake. There are a few common bungles to watch out for. The first is the number of HDMI ports – you need to make sure that you have enough. If you're connecting a Fire Stick, an Xbox, and a Sky TV box, that's three HDMI ports gone straight away. And if the TV only has three ports, what do you do if you bag yourself the new Two HDMI ports will be a real struggle, so try to get a telly that has at least four. Secondly, if you're planning to do some serious gaming on the telly, pay attention to the refresh rate. Video is just a series of still images shown very quickly – and the refresh rate tells you how many times a second your TV is updating those images. For gamers, a screen with 120Hz or 144Hz refresh rate gives you a smoother motion when you're playing games at a high frame rate. 16 Some TV brands offer 144Hz televisions that are better for gaming Credit: Samsung And that's important especially in fast-paced games. AMAZON SHOPPING MISTAKES Amazon is a treasure trove for gadget fans – it's packed with tech, often sold with heavy discounts. Mistake #1 – Falling for fake deals But one of the pitfalls for Amazon shoppers is finding a fake deal. This is when a price seems to be discounted, but the truth is that the "full price" isn't totally honest. Sometimes, sellers will only list a product at its full price for very short periods of time. This allows them to display a product as heavily discounted – even though that's the real price. Fortunately, there's a brilliant tool called CamelCamelCamel ( 16 You can easily check the price history for Amazon products by using CamelCamelCamel Credit: CamelCamelCamel / The Sun You'll be able to see a graph that charts its price movements, plus its highest, lowest, and average mark-ups. That way, you can tell if you're actually buying a great deal – or you're being massively ripped off. Mistake #2 – Not using price alerts The problem with buying products online is that it always feels like there's a sale on – until the moment you actually want to buy a product. 16 Make sure you're using your Amazon Wish List for discount alerts Credit: Amazon Then suddenly it's full price everywhere and you're paying hundreds more than you'd hoped to. The best way to tackle that with Amazon gadgets is to set up price alerts. This is perfect if you don't need something right away and want to get the best value for money . For a start, you can add items to your Amazon Wish List, and then switch on notifications in your Amazon account settings. That way, you'll be notified when prices drop for any of the items on your wish list. You can also go into the Amazon app, head into the Notifications > Recommendations settings and toggle it on. This will give you personalised deal alerts based on your shopping activity – like for items that you've recently searched. This is handy, as it'll capture gadgets that you forgot to add to your wish list but might still be interested in. 16 Try toggling on recommendation notifications for personalised deal alerts Credit: Amazon It could save you from massively overspending. Mistake #3 – Ignoring Amazon's hidden discounts There are a few easy-to-miss discount schemes on Amazon worth noting. Firstly, there's the Amazon Renewed store This is Amazon's Certified Refurbished store, where it professionally inspects, tests, and resells gadgets – with a one-year guarantee included. 16 Loads of discounted gadgets can be found in the Amazon Renewed store Credit: Amazon / The Sun You'll find significant discounts on products, including phones, headphones, and laptops. So it's worth checking on that store before you pay full price on regular Amazon. If you're a Prime member, you can also take advantage of the Buy More & Save store – you can find that This knocks 15% off your total bill if you buy at least four qualifying items. 16 If you're a Prime member, you can instantly cut your shopping bill Credit: Amazon / The Sun There's plenty in there, including food, clothes, and home essentials – but also some electronics too. So it's an easy way to trim your Amazon bills if you need the items on offer.
RTÉ News
6 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Hope that gain masks pain as Trump signs 'beautiful' bill
Donald Trump signed his "One Big Beautiful Bill" in the Oval Office last night. It is possibly the most consequential thing he will do in domestic American politics in his second term. The course of America for the next few years has been set: his election promises are now the law of the land. This is a very big deal - and not just for America. It challenges Europe and China and anyone else who fancies themselves as a great economic power. "Lets see if you can keep up" is the political message from the One Big Beautiful Bill (the OBBB). The aim is to juice the US economy to a higher long term average growth level, a reworking of the fuel/oxygen mix to boost performance. If it pays off, America will grow stronger into the middle of the 21st century, pulling further away from a Europe that has been economically flatlining for more than two decades. And it will be far better prepared to take on a technologically rising China, albeit one hamstrung by its demographic implosion. It is a bold gamble, both politically and economically. But it is not cost free, not pain free. The simplest, most deadly criticism of the OBBB outcome is that it rewards the richest and strongest in America by cutting government assistance spending from the poorest and neediest. In simple terms, the top 1% of taxpayers will get tax breaks over the next decade worth $1.02 trillion. Over the same period, the poorest 15% will lose $930 billion in government funded healthcare. Yes it cuts tax on tips and monthly overtime hours, and these are aimed at people earning less than $400,000 a year, but unlike the income and investment breaks that most benefit the very richest, the small-change tax cuts are temporary, expiring when Mr Trump leaves office in 2029. The Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a non-partisan non-profit organisation calculated these numbers from the detailed tables compiled by Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation from the bill as it left the Senate on Tuesday night. The tax cuts that favour the very richest are a gamble on productivity growth - a big bet made with money taken from the poorest. The President hopes the gain will mask the pain. And there is a lot of masking to do. Opinion polling shows the OBBB is deeply unpopular with Americans of all sorts. Within political circles there is pain too - dozens of Republican Congressmen, and possibly a few senators - the very people who voted this bill into law last week - are at risk of losing their seats in next year's elections. It would not even fix America's chronic budget deficit problem: it spends way more than it takes in taxes, and borrows to make up the gap, piling up the national debt. It has been this way since 2021. This Budget Reconciliation Act continues with emergency level borrowing, with no emergency to be seen. The environment will pay part of the price, too: green energy subsidies are cut to fund subsidies to reopen coal mining. Subsidies for electric cars are cut too. There is even a tax on green electricity, which critics say will undermine the viability of wind and solar farms. It goes a long way to explain the visceral hostility of Elon Musk to the OBBB (and Trump). He is publicly critical of the rise in government borrowing, taking it as a personal affront after his (less than spectacular) efforts to cut spending through DOGE. He calls the OBBB "utterly insane", a "disgusting abomination" and "political suicide" for the Republicans, threatening to fund primary election challengers to Republicans who voted for the bill (which is pretty much all of them, though Mr Musk has said in reality he would focus on three or four senators and ten to twelve House members, as the most vulnerable). But even without Mr Musk's millions there is a political price coming for the Republican Party - the Big Beautiful Bill is the framing for next year's midterm election, and those who read the tea leaves of American politics say this bill has increased the number of vulnerable Republican House members - and a couple of Senators too. One of them, Tom Tillis of North Carolina, is not hanging around to find out, announcing his intention not to contest next year's election in his state, one of the more dependent on the Medicaid and food assistance programmes that are being cut. And because the government backed health insurance is being cut, the loss of income will affect the viability of rural hospitals. North Carolina has the second biggest rural based population in the country, after Texas. The state has 3.1 million people in receipt of Medicaid, and around 900,000 of them are set to lose the entitlement because of the OBBB. That is out of a total state population of 11 million. Some of those set to lose out are in the West end of the state, which was hit hard by Hurricane Helene just weeks before the election. Those folks voted for Mr Trump. Indeed the cuts will impact hardest in the kind of "Red" states that voted for Mr Trump, the rural hospital threat being more severe in most of the Red states because of the demographic spread. Mr Tillis warned his own party of a coming electoral firestorm. After years of floundering, the OBBB has given the Democratic Party something tangible to work with, a sturdy stick with which to beat the Republicans and motivate their own demoralised troops. That is why the Democrats leader in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, stood for almost nine hours, making a last ditch speech to prevent the OBBB passing in the middle of the night, when nobody was watching. His stand won him not just a new record for longest House speech in the modern era, but more importantly kept the OBBB story fresh for the primetime TV news slots on Thursday evening. Of course nobody was listening, but it didn't matter: all the important messages came in the first 45 seconds: "I rise today in strong opposition to Donald Trump's 'One Big Ugly Bill.' This disgusting abomination, the GOP tax scam that guts Medicaid, rips food from the mouths of children, seniors, and veterans, and rewards billionaires with massive tax breaks. "Every single Democrat stands in strong opposition to this bill because we're standing up for the American people. Republicans are once again, as has been the case through every step of this journey, trying to jam this bill through the House of Representatives under the cover of darkness," he added. "But I'm here today to make it clear that I'm gonna take my time and ensure that the American people fully understand how damaging this bill will be to their quality of life," he said. And so he did. But more importantly for the Democrats, it has been a whole party effort over months that has slowly gotten through to the American people. And they do not like what they have heard. The fundamental trade at the heart of the OBBB - tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest at the expense of the poor - has played badly. An opinion poll for Fox News found 59% of Americans had an unfavourable view of the OBBB, against 38% who had a favourable view. Pew Research found 49% for the bill, 29% against it, while KFF research found 64% viewed the bill unfavourably, while 35% favoured it. Digging deeper, the KFF tables showed MAGA supporting republicans favoured the bill by 72%, but only 33% of non-MAGA republicans felt that way. Support among both camps dropped by 20% when informed of the bill's implications for health insurance and rural hospitals. For Mike Johnston, the Speaker of the House of Representatives who achieved the political feat of steering through one of the biggest budget bills in US history with the smallest parliamentary majority in the last 100 years - and in the teeth of intense internal and external opposition - there was relief on Thursday afternoon after a 36 hour sleepless marathon, as he closed the debate and called for the final vote, selling hard on his main points. "Record tax cuts for hard working Americans: Historic savings at the same time to end reckless spending. We got energy dominance coming back to power our future. We have a secure border to protect American families. "We have a strong military to restore peace through strength. And we have a government that is now accountable and responsive to the people once again, that's what we're delivering," he added. President Trump and his supporters like to say he keeps his political promises, delivers what he said he would. But with the OBBB he broke a pretty big promise: his promise not to touch public health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office shows that 10.9 million will lose their health care coverage from the Medicaid cuts and another 5.1 million will lose their health care coverage due to the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare) cuts - a total of some 16 million people. Two million people will lose access to SNAP, a nutrition programme formerly known as food stamps. It is a way for some 38 million Americans to get help with grocery bills. Around 30 million of that 38 million are also enrolled in the Medicaid programme. The OBBB introduces work requirements to continue in the programme, proponents arguing that single healthy working age people should not get welfare intended for people who cannot work or who have children. But two thirds of Medicare recipients are already in work. They will have to keep proving it every six months to keep eligibility, and the constant stream of paperwork will, opponents say, grind people down and lead to them losing something they are entitled to, simply because of the paperwork involved. Because the US government programme to provide free medical insurance for treatments for pensioners does not cover long-term care, many older adults rely on Medicaid to cover their nursing home costs. It takes care of about 60% of nursing home residents. There is concern that the big cuts to Medicaid could see a number of nursing homes close down, reducing the number of places available in the system, making it harder for pensioners to find a care home. In a meeting during the last, fraught week to put some backbone into Republican House members, President Trump reportedly told them that whatever way they decided to re-jig the OBBB to get it across the line, there was one thing they were not to do: never touch Medicaid. "But sir," a House member piped up, "the bill touches Medicaid". The other compensation mechanism for the tax cuts is to raise borrowing, adding further to the US national debt by about $3.5 trillion. This will bring the total debt to around $40 trillion in ten years time. These numbers are of course meaningless to normal people (and, arguably, to budget geeks as well). In terms we got used to during the financial crisis of 15 years ago, US government borrowing is now hovering around 100% of GDP, but over the course of the next decade could top 130% of GDP (Ireland's debt ratio last year was 42%: it was 88% for the Euro area). US National debt per capita works out around $106,112. The equivalent dollar figure for Ireland is $47,746 (€40,531). It is a debt trajectory that caused Moody's rating agency to be the last of the big three to fold and remove its Triple-A rating on US debt. The cost of servicing the debt is higher than the sum the US spends on defence (currently - the OBBB plugs in a big spending splurge on defence, and on border security in the form of ICE, the controversial agency carrying out immigration raids). Government borrowing costs are creeping up, and they in turn set the borrowing costs for everyone else, notably through mortgage and business loans. The President argues that the extra growth he predicts from the OBBB changes will take care of the debt ratio, and with it concerns over interest costs, but there is still a big budget deficit in the US - the gap between what the government takes in in taxes and what it spends - a gap that is made up with borrowing. This year, it is going to be around 6.5% in the US. In Ireland there is a budget surplus, in the euro area the budget rules forbid governments to borrow more than 3% of GDP in any given year. The fiscal hawks within his own party are not happy. But with very few exceptions - Ron Paul in the Senate, Tom Massie in the House, both of Kentucky - the hawks voted for the OBBB. Fear of Mr Trump's revenge reportedly overcoming their fear of fiscal instability. OBBB also creates a possible headache for the Irish Government by injecting some fresh uncertainty into the realm of corporation tax, the fiscal heroin to which the Irish Government has developed a dangerous dependency. At the House Ways and Means Committee last month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent faced a grilling on various aspects of the OBBB, including the bit that legislates the US withdrawal from the OECD rules establishing a global minimum effective rate of corporation tax. The ones that took more than a dozen years of patient diplomacy to negotiate. 15% is the new global standard for big multinationals, and Ireland has raised its corporate tax rate to comply. The Biden Administration brought the US into the agreement. Now the Trump administration is taking it out, as Mr Bessent told the committee on 11 June: "For whatever reason, the previous administration chose to outsource American sovereignty on tax matters, and the Trump administration believes that is unacceptable. Many other countries would seek to pull in revenues from US multinational corporations into their treasury. "Rest assured that the provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill to combat this are a staking out of our fiscal sovereignty. The US tax system will stand next to what is called Pillar Two, and other countries are welcome to relinquish their fiscal and tax sovereignty to other nations," he added. "The United States will not. So, this bill will allow us to prevent our corporate revenues from being drained into foreign treasuries, and that is in the hundreds of billions of dollars," he said. Exiting pillar two of the OECD is now the law of the land too. Its impact on the Irish exchequer returns is uncertain. The President has also pledged a rebirth of the American manufacturing industry, and the OBBB has measures designed to stimulate investment, such as 100% tax write offs for factories. Will it suck in money from around the world - including money allocated to expansion abroad, including in Ireland? Yesterday saw an American Chamber of Commerce report stating that 60% of member firms were planning to increase hiring in Ireland next year, with 68% already planning further investments over the next five years. Mr Bessent sold the OBBB hard to the Ways and Means Committee last month, tempting members with the prospect of a veritable dam burst of investment if it were made law: "I was with a group of business leaders earlier this week and they were telling me that they are, in fact, holding back on CapEx because they need for the tax bill to pass so that they will have certainty that 100% of the expenses will come back. "I think that we will see a sharp upward break in terms of CapEx as soon as we pass the One Big Beautiful Bill." President Trump's big bill depends on growth. Failure is not an option. Because failure in growth will unmask the pain behind the bill, and indeed will increase the pain. High borrowing when there is no emergency - such as a war or Covid - may leave little room to borrow when it is really needed. But the President is all in on his biggest gamble yet. This is it for the next three and a half years. Everything else is foreign policy - including tariff policy. And next year's election.
