Trump Posts Swing Stock Markets amid Whispers of Manipulations
US President Donald Trump and tariffs on gold! (Image TRH)
Obtain Trump trust and associate trading records, match timestamps with social-media logs and drafts, and analyze market data.
By P SESH KUMAR
New Delhi, October 13, 2025 —US President Donald Trump yesterday publicly softened his tone on China-“Don’t worry about China… Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment… The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it”— hours after threatening 100 percent tariffs that had slammed risk assets. Markets whipsawed in response. What is interesting is the allegation that Trump “shorted the market” before his earlier post and then “squared off” to profit. This would be explosive if true.
Yet publicly available reporting offers no proof that he or his agents placed such trades. What is documented is a classic market-moving sequence: a tariff threat, a sell-off, then a conciliatory message that buoyed futures and crypto sentiment.
I attempt to examine what is known, what remains an allegation, and where the law actually draws its lines-under SEC and CFTC anti-manipulation rules, Rule 10b-5 and Section 9(a)(2), the STOCK Act, and the President’s unusual exemption from key conflict-of-interest statutes.
The verdict: speech that moves prices is not illegal per se; trading around that speech, coupled with deception or falsehoods, can cross into manipulative territory. Only time and the tenacity with which the allegations could be pursued, would determine what lies ahead.
When Trump threatened 100 percent tariffs on all Chinese imports, equities and crypto plunged; when he then posted that Xi “had a bad moment” and that the U.S. sought to “help China,” futures rebounded sharply. The quote was widely reported by global outlets linking the remarks to the tariff whiplash and rare-earth tensions between Washington and Beijing.
What makes Trump’s China remark particularly jarring is the double standard it exposes in his trade posture toward Asia’s two largest economies. Just days earlier, he had announced punitive 100 percent tariffs on Indian exports, citing “unfair trade practices” (immediate provocation was to pressure India stop its crude oil purchases from Russia) and an alleged imbalance in pharmaceuticals, textiles, and IT services. Yet within the same news cycle he was mollycoddling Beijing, calling Xi Jinping “highly respected” and insisting America wanted to “help China.”
The contrast is stunning. India, a supposedly democratic ally and much announced strategic partner in the Indo-Pacific, faces Trump’s tariff ire; China, a systemic rival, suddenly receives indulgent empathy.
The rationale may lie in Trump’s transactional instinct-Beijing’s enormous holdings of U.S. Treasuries, its grip on supply chains, and the pull of Chinese consumer demand over American corporates all make open confrontation risky in an election year.
He may be signalling markets that a U.S.–China détente is back on the table, seeking to calm investors while profiting from the rebound that his own reversal triggers. Either way, it reflects the familiar Trump playbook: talk tough, rattle the tape, then pivot to benevolence when the market gasps for air-a tactic that may thrill traders but raises deep questions about consistency, propriety, and motive in foreign-economic policy.
This is not the first time regulators have faced the problem of market-moving speech. Most of us would remember the SEC’s 2018 case against Elon Musk over his “funding secured” tweets established that false or misleading statements which move securities can trigger Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 liability, regardless of the medium.
Musk’s settlement-later upheld in court-showed that online statements, if deceptive and tied to securities, are actionable.
Translated to Trump’s situation, there are possibly three legal lanes.
First, securities-fraud liability under Rule 10b-5. If an individual trades securities while deploying a “scheme to defraud”-including false statements or half-truths calculated to move prices-and benefits from those trades, the SEC can act. A politician’s policy rhetoric is usually protected speech, but verifiably false, market-moving statements tethered to personal trading are a different animal. The question isn’t “did he move markets?” but “did he pair trades with deception?” So far there is no documentary proof of such trading.
Second, market manipulation under Exchange Act Section 9(a)(2). This targets transactions intended to create a “false or misleading appearance” of trading or price. Classic cases involve wash sales or matched orders; without trades or coordinated activity designed to distort prices, pure rhetoric does not fit that mould.
Third, crypto and commodities oversight. Bitcoin is treated largely as a commodity; the CFTC’s Rule 180.1-modelled on 10b-5-covers manipulative or deceptive conduct in commodity spot and derivatives markets. Someone trading BTC or futures around knowingly misleading statements could fall within CFTC jurisdiction; securities with crypto exposure (such as spot-Bitcoin ETFs) remain under SEC purview.
When we overlay this with the ethics framework, we find that the President is exempt from the main criminal conflict-of-interest law (18 U.S.C. section 208), a loophole long criticized by ethics scholars, but not from insider-trading prohibitions or disclosure obligations. The STOCK Act forbids officials from using non-public information for private gain. If a President, aware of a non-public plan to issue a market-moving policy statement, traded or tipped others to trade, regulators would have jurisdiction-especially where securities are involved.
As for the allegation that Trump shorted the market and “squared off”: public reporting confirms the posts and violent price swings, but no evidence of trading by him or his proxies. Indeed, in April 2025, his own media company urged the SEC to probe short sellers of its stock-a gesture that underscores his sensitivity to shorting but not his personal activity elsewhere. Without brokerage records or credible whistle-blower evidence, the charge remains conjecture.
The legal stress test would appear to be simple. If an official times personal trades to profit from non-public policy actions or planned statements, that risks insider-trading or “scheme” liability. If he lies in a market-moving way and trades around it, that risks 10b-5 or CFTC 180.1 exposure.
If he merely speaks, markets react, and he doesn’t trade, it is politics with market consequences-not securities or commodities fraud. This is the stage what the matter would appear to be in, right now.
Secure trading records from Trump’s trusts and close associates
If Congress or regulators want to test the allegation, the next steps are procedural: secure trading records from Trump’s trusts and close associates for the relevant period; compare timestamps to social-media scheduling logs and internal drafts; and analyze market-surveillance data for BTC, crypto derivatives, major index futures, and proxy ETFs. If trades exist, assess whether his speech contained material misstatements and whether there was a scheme to profit from the induced move.
If no trades exist, this reduces to a question of propriety rather than law. Going forward, two reforms are imperative: extend section 208-style conflict-of-interest coverage to the President and Vice President, and impose real-time trade-disclosure rules for top officials in all public markets, including crypto-linked products. Only then will the line between governing and gaming be clearly drawn.
(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)
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