What Trump is Stealing from You. Part 1

If you're still looking for that One Big Message—one that can get through to your uncle who thinks Trump is a great businessman despite his six bankruptcies and a fine moral leader despite cheating on three wives—here it is:

Donald Trump is stealing from you.

He's stealing from you. He's stealing from your family. He's stealing from your friends. He's stealing from your children. He is stealing your property, your services, and your savings. And he is doing it in almost every way imaginable—including some that should be impossible in any functional government.

He is lining his pockets with your money, and if he isn't stopped soon, his actions will drive the economy into ruin unlike anything we've seen in a century and leave America deep in a pit no future administration can fill.

How Trump is manipulating the stock market to steal your savings and retirement funds

On his last full day in office, market site Morningstar provided a final look at how the stock market performed under President Joe Biden.

U.S. stocks closed out Joe Biden's era on a high note as the president bids farewell to the White House. 

The 46th president of the United States is bringing his time at the White House to a close with the S&P 500 SPX up over 55% since he took office on Jan. 20, 2021. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA advanced more than 39% over the same period, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP jumped nearly 46%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Since Trump took office, the S&P 500, the DJIA, and the Nasdaq composite have all declined. In the last three weeks, the S&P has dropped 5%, the Dow has fallen 4.7%, and the Nasdaq has lost 7.8%.

Weeks before Trump took office, Elon Musk warned that there might be some temporary "hardship" when Trump returned to the White House. In his first joint address to Congress, Trump shrugged it off as a "little disturbance."

Trump didn't mention that ordinary Americans have lost hundreds of billions from this little ... disturbance. He also didn't mention that a much smaller number of people have pocketed a fortune.

While the stock market may seem like something that affects only the rich, with over 93% of all stocks owned by the wealthiest 10% of Americans, the number of Americans invested in the market is greater than 162 million. That's about 62% of the nation's adult population.

However, the great majority of those "investors" actually own stocks only indirectly, through mutual funds held as part of IRAs, 401K plans, and other retirement accounts. Only a relative few hold more sophisticated instruments or actively engage in trading individual stocks or funds.

Before the 2024 election, Trump claimed that the market increases under Biden happened only because "they think I'm going to be elected." However, when he was elected, many of the most savvy investors made a different kind of bet. As the Telegraph reported in January, the big money was running in the other direction.

Data from Goldman Sachs show there has been a surge in “short” bets against US stocks, meaning traders will make money when they fall in value, in a sign of growing concerns about the market.

While most Americans have been watching their retirement savings shrink, these hedge fund investors are among a handful of wealthy players who have been profiting from the disastrous market under Trump.

Why would they make this bet? Tariffs.

While there are few actions that a president can take that are guaranteed to boost the stock market, there are actions that will absolutely drive stocks down in an instant. Tariffs, or even the threat of tariffs, is one of those actions.

Stocks fall sharply Monday, extending declines in late afternoon trade as President Donald Trump affirmed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico will take effect.

Just how sensitive to the idea of tariffs is the market? On March 5, Trump met with automakers after they explained how tariffs were causing a sharp increase in the price of pickup trucks. When Trump announced a delay in implementing tariffs on the auto industry, those specific stocks abruptly rose.

Tariffs, or even the threat of tariffs, can be used to manipulate the market. Trump can drive stocks down, or drag them partway back up, with a simple announcement. He can do it to the market as a whole, to segments of the market, or even to individual stocks by changing the parameters of his announcements. And he can repeatedly threaten, apply, remove, suspend, reapply, over and over.

On Thursday, Trump abruptly reversed tariffs that he had imposed on Mexico and Canada on Tuesday. But while many national media outlets reported this action as something Trump took because he was under pressure from falling markets, none seemed to pose the question: What if falling markets weren't an unexpected result, but a very expected goal?

Trump, his family, his friends, and every member of his administration who knows when he will apply or remove tariffs has a tremendous opportunity to make a fortune every time he flips the switch. It is insider trading on the largest scale imaginable.

Not at all coincidentally, since Trump took office the SEC has relaxed the rules about collecting information on trades. According to Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw, this makes it impossible for the SEC to detect activity that could be related to market manipulation and impairs "regulators’ ability to understand suspicious activity, unwind events or stave off market disruptions." At the same time, the Treasury Department announced that it has suspended transparency reporting that required foreign and domestic companies to disclose their true owners. These changes make it much easier to hide the source of massive trades or determine who benefits.

Fortunes are definitely being made. But not for you. The 162 million Americans who have been told that stocks are the only way to secure their retirement are just the cow being milked to generate billions for Trump's wealthy insiders.

He is manipulating the market to steal money from your retirement savings and hand it over to his billionaire pals.