People of America, we must remember that before President Donald Trump became the most important political official in the world, he was a businessman. For this reason, following his sudden 90-day tariff pause, the Democrats are suspicious that his scheme was less about Chinese imports and more about the stock markets.
Trump took to social media to celebrate his tariff tirade Wednesday writing, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” in reference to the stock market - which, at the time of his post, was performing pretty low. He had just come off the high of announcing his decision from earlier this month to raise tariffs on Chinese goods up to a whopping 145 percent. On the other hand, China decided to match his gangsta and retaliate with their own tariff spike on American goods. As of Friday, their tariff is up to 125 percent, per The New York Times.
However, just hours after his post, Trump followed up with a shocking announcement that he would pose a 90-day tariff pause on China and lower tariffs on other countries down to 10 percent. Within seconds of his post, stocks went through the roof. For example, Nasdaq climbed nearly 12 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 8 percent, CNBC’s analysis. Not to mention, stock for Trump’s media group that controls the Truth Social app shot up by 22 percent, per The Guardian.
Obviously, the time-out in the tariff game led to some concerns across Democratic legislators who already had their eyes peeled searching for Trump’s angle. A group of 19 Democrat House members and a group of six Senators swiftly sent letters to the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, requesting an investigation into whether the president and his buddies violated federal securities laws.
“It is unconscionable that as American families are concerned about their financial security during this economic crisis entirely manufactured by the President, insiders may have actively profited from the market volatility and potentially perpetrated financial fraud on the American public,” the Senators wrote, requesting a response by April 25.
Welp, former Vice President Kamala Harris did warn that Trump would pull a scheme to make his rich friends richer, ushering the rest of us into a recession by the summer. According to J.P. Morgan, our probability of going into a recession now stands at 40 percent - a ten percent increased difference from the beginning of the year.
It will be hard for Trump to deny the market manipulation allegations but not only because of his carefully timed posts. He also exposed his hand to reporters in the press conference following it.
“The bond market is very tricky, I was watching it. The bond market right now is beautiful. But yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy,” Trump told reporters Wednesday, via CNN.
Meanwhile, our trading partners including several members of the European Union, India, Japan and Brazil seek to negotiate further over the tariff deals, per TIME.