In Donald Trump, America has a president who combines business with politics. So far, we’ve witnessed Trump and golf, Trump and social media, Trump and cyber, Trump and real estate, Trump and artefacts. This is an elected leader who shamelessly plugs the Trump family business interests while seeking to serve his country.
Now comes Trump and tariffs. Shortly after the US markets opened on Wednesday morning, Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social: ‘THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT’. Barely four hours later, he announced a 90-day pause in imposing extra tariffs on all countries except China. The world-shaking news sent shares rocketing. The S&P 500 rose by more than 9 per cent, while the Nasdaq was more than 12 per cent up.
Normally, Trump does not put his initials at the end. He did this time, and they just happen to be the same letters as the Nasdaq ticker for the Trump Media & Technology Group, the business that owns Truth Social, which saw its own stock soar by 22 per cent.
Democratic senator Chris Murphy has written on X (formerly Twitter) that an “insider trading scandal is brewing”. “Trump’s 9:30am tweet makes it clear he was eager for his people to make money off the private info only he knew,” wrote Murphy. “So, who knew ahead of time and how much money did they make?”
In a sense, the accusation should come as no surprise. Other presidents park their commercial interests, as the price for holding the highest public office. The financial rewards can wait until afterwards. Not Trump.
When Keir Starmer visited the White House, the issue of the British Open golf roster and his Turnberry course’s continued absence from it was discussed. Similarly, while engaging in high-level diplomacy, Trump has been trying to merge the two competing golf tours, a move that would surely see the world’s top players battle it out on his courses.
Likewise, in cyber, immediately prior to his inauguration, Trump launched two cryptocurrency tokens, $TRUMP and $MELANIA. Investors rushed to put billions of dollars into the coins, which are 80 per cent owned by Trump-linked companies. These firms also hold 60 per cent of World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform.
Every time someone clicks on Truth Social, its worth rises. To see what the president is saying, one place to look is his social media platform. Kerching.
Trump’s first journey abroad in this presidential incarnation will be to Saudi Arabia – where, it so happens, Trump towers are being built in Jeddah and Riyadh, with talk of another project earmarked for the capital.
During his election campaign, the would-be president and head of state endorsed a line of sneakers and managed to earn $300,000 (£230,000) from the publication of a Trump bible.
In theory, since he became president, monetising the Trump name is off limits. It’s for his children to oversee, while an external ethics lawyer is meant to monitor his companies’ dealings and investments. The reality, however, is a blurring of private financial gain and public service.
Even so, the suggestion that his circle was able to make a killing while countries (including his own) were reeling from his tariffs onslaught represents a new low. A reversal was coming, he provided a nudge – and that, plus the rare use of those key initials, pointed to a profitable course of action.
Trump, of course, will deny that he did such a thing. Any share-buying was pure coincidence, as indeed it would be, in relation to the apparent combining of commerce and duty in the above. But normally, the merest whiff of insider trading on the back of performing a public role would be enough to finish a person’s career.
Trump is different. He’s a businessman first and foremost – always will be – and a politician a distant second. It defines his whole approach to his current job, treating policies as negotiating tools, making everything he does entirely transactional.
America knew that when it elected him; he’s never made any bones about it, referencing his property career and business experience at every turn. Even so, the electorate seems to have given him a free pass to do exactly as he pleases.
That, in a sense, is the most shocking aspect of all. That a country so proud of its constitution, and of its adherence to the values of fairness and justice, should turn a blind eye to what its leader is doing. Some Democrats are attempting to kick up a stink about possible insider trading; the Republicans don’t wish to know. From them, there is a collective shrug, as if they are saying “That’s Trump” and it is therefore acceptable.
The hypocrisy is startling. There is Trump, surrounded by fawning business chiefs who know that, if there were any hint of someone in their firm, or among their friends and relatives, cashing in on confidential information, they would be in severe trouble. Again, not where Trump is concerned.
Presumably, it is the same disregard that applies to his beloved golf. There, his cheating is well known – there is even a book dedicated to it, Commander in Cheat – How Golf Explains Trump by Rick Reilly – but no one seems to mind, and his playing partners tolerate him regardless. Usually, in such a rules-obsessed game, the most minor transgression would warrant serious discipline. Not for Trump.
In golf, it is treated as a bit of a joke, a lark. That is how America sees what he gets up to in the White House. America is amused; the rest of the world is appalled. Still, as Trump himself said: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.” It is that alright.
