The main US federal government retirement fund has halted a plan to shift some of its investments into Chinese companies, after criticism from President Donald Trump that the move would have hurt national security.
The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, a government agency that manages $594bn in assets for 5.9m workers through its Thrift Savings Plan, said it would postpone a long-planned change to the composition of its international portfolio, two days after the White House raised concerns about the move.
The reversal was a victory for critics who said the TSP would have invested government employees’ money into Chinese companies that the Trump administration says threaten the US national interest.