Liberation Day, Manipulation Day

Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) wrote to the White House on April 10th requesting an investigation into whether President Donald Trump and his associates manipulated the stock market using tariffs to allow themselves to participate “in insider trading or other illegal financial transactions.” Their call for an investigation into President Trump was echoed by numerous other Democratic Party legislators, including Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA.) Gallego and Schiff’s letter came only one day after Trump’s nominee for the leader of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC,) which would be tasked with the investigation, was appointed into office by a 52-44 vote in the Senate. The SEC refused to make a statement about whether they would conduct an investigation. However, White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai denied the allegations against Trump and accused Democratic legislators of “playing partisan games instead of celebrating President Trump’s decisive action.”

Suspicion against President Trump arose after he posted on social media platform Truth Social telling investors “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” hours before enacting a 90-day pause on his global tariff increases. Before Trump paused his hiked tariffs, the American stock market experienced a record-breaking economic downturn as investors and businesses reacted negatively to the President’s tariff plans. The S&P 500 sank by US$5.83 trillion, recording its sharpest four-day market value decrease since the stock index was founded in 1957. The Dow Jones and Nasdaq also suffered significant declines that started the day after Trump announced his new tariff policies on April 2nd, a day he labelled “Liberation Day” for the American economy. In total, Trump’s new tariff sent more than US$9 trillion worth of stock market investments up in flames around the globe.

American markets responded soon after President Trump paused his tariffs days later, turning a historic collapse into a historic recovery for the world’s most powerful economy. Trump’s advice to purchase stocks before this rebound is the basis for claims that the President involved himself in insider trading, discreetly and deliberately alerting his associates to when he would enact and pause tariffs so they could acquire stocks at lower prices before their market values increased. Although these claims carry serious implications, Trump’s Truth Social post is not sufficient evidence to prove them true because Truth Social is a public platform, which fails to support the idea that Trump acted with secrecy. Whether anything more happened behind closed doors would be up to an SEC investigation to determine, and with Trump-nominated Paul Atkins now in charge of the SEC, such an investigation may be unlikely.

Extemp Analysis by Lindsey Zhao

Trump’s tariffs (or lack thereof 😂) are all over the news, so you’re pretty much guaranteed to be asked something about their implications for global/domestic trade, whether they’ll even be implemented, etc. For any question regarding tariffs, make sure you have a good understanding of what they are and who exactly pays the cost. They’re pretty controversial right now, and any question about Trump’s alleged manipulation of the markets is sure to make any tariff topic even more polarizing. Honestly…my advice would be to avoid picking questions like these that have a lot of potential to be very controversial, unless you are absolutely sure of your judge’s political orientations; even if you know, limiting your bias and sticking only to the facts/what experts are saying is probably your safest option. 

Regardless, let’s say you have a question asking: Does Trump’s tariff policy constitute insider trading? In your background, clearly define the criteria for the question: what actions would qualify as “insider trading”?

• SEC definition: insider trading occurs when an investor knows of "material nonpublic information" and then uses that information in violation of a duty to refrain from trading or sharing the knowledge.

Use this definition to frame the rest of your speech. Each point should probably center around one action that Trump has taken in regards to tariffs that could be a little sus (like in the article above) and do an expectation-verification substructure.

For example, if your umbrella argues that Trump did not do insider trading:

1. Truth Social tweet was public

Expectation: must be nonpublic information to be insider trading

Verification: Truth Social tweets are publicly available, so this does not meet insider trading criteria

Impact: People may pay greater heed to his tweets from Truth Social in the future to gain more hints regarding public policy!

Read More Here:

• Lauren Almeida, The Guardian

• Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Reuters

• Lucy Burton, The Telegraph

• Alex Woodward, The Independent

• Mike Lillis, The Hill