Tariff reversal sparks ‘insider trading’ accusations from Democrats
President Donald Trump’s posts leading up to the tariff reversal had Democrats accusing him of “insider trading.”
As the stock market continued to tank Wednesday morning in response to tariffs imposed earlier that day, President Donald Trump issued social media posts urging people to “BE COOL!” because “Everything is going to work out well,” and then telling his followers, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”
Less than four hours later, he announced he would pause the brand-new tariffs on every country except China, sending stocks shooting up sharply, with some making historically large one-day gains.
Now, Democrats are questioningwhether anyone in Trump’s circle knew the president was going to pause tariffs and made any stock market trades related to it.
“It is the responsibility of the President of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told USA TODAY in a statement.
Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Ruben Gallego of Arizona wrote in a letter to the Jamieson Greer, the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles that the sequence of Trump’s posts on social media and the market increase raised “grave legal and ethics concerns.”
They pointed to Wednesday’s 9.5% gain for the S&P 500, a major stock index, and an immediate 18% jump in the price of a share of Tesla, co-founded by Trump aide Elon Musk, who publicly opposed the tariffs in a feud with Trump’s trade advisor.
“The president, his family, and his advisors are uniquely positioned to be privy and take advantage of non-public information to inform their investment decisions,” Schiff and Gallego wrote in the letter.
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said in a recorded video that Trump’s dramatic shifts in policies gave anyone who knows the information in advance an opportunity “to make boatloads of money, either by investing at the right time, or pulling the money out of the market at the right time.”
“It stinks, and we should get to the bottom of it,” Murphy said.
Schiff and Gallego asked for an “urgent inquiry” into the matter and posed several questions, but did not provide any evidence that Trump’s family or staff traded on insider knowledge. Neither did Murphy.
Federal law requires Trump and his close aides to file disclosures of their stock transactions, according to Kathleen Clark, a legal ethics professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
They generally must file within 45 days of the trade, the law says, and it is illegal for government officials to trade based on inside information they received in their official government capacity.
Schiff and Gallego asked the Office of Government Ethics “review and produce” any reports on transactions “in proximity to the president’s April 9 announcement.”
Robert Maguire, research director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said it’s common for presidents to try to reassure investors during times of crisis that the market is safe, and it would be hard to make a case that the post was insider information.
“Multiple times leading up to the big announcement last week, he did implement tariffs and then take them away,” Maguire said. “So people were already seeing the turbulence in the market.”
Contributing: Joey Garrison
