Reports from Trumplandia: The "Smash and Grab"/"Were We Controlled?" Edition

1) From Bernard Condon's 5-19-26 Associated Press news report entitled "Trump Discloses Thousands of Stock Trades, Some in Companies Directly Influenced By His Policies":

Call him the Trader in Chief.

Recent presidents have stayed away from trading stocks in companies whose fortunes they could lift or scuttle with the stroke of a pen, but Donald Trump smashed that precedent in the first quarter of this year with more than 3,600 buy and sell orders, many of them involving companies whose profits have been directly impacted by his decisions as head of the government.

Among the Trump trades in a recent report filed with a federal ethics agency was as much as $6 million in Nvidia, whose advanced chips Trump approved for sale to China last year. His portfolio also scooped up stocks of several U.S. military suppliers impacted by the Iran war, including Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman.

“If he were defense secretary, he would be committing a crime,” said Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics adviser in the George W. Bush administration and a big critic of congressional trading, too. “Technically he can do this, but it is a fundamental breach of trust.”

To read the entire article, click HERE.

2) From Liz Landers' and Doug Adams' 5-28-26 PBS NEWSHOUR report entitled "Trump Stock Trades Fuel Accusations of Corruption and Profiting Off Presidency":

It's one thing to watch the market, but it's another thing altogether to actively trade stocks while in office. Mr. Trump's most recent federal financial disclosure form, filed earlier this month, reveals more than 3,700 trades in the first three months of this year, a flurry amounting to tens of millions of dollars in transactions.

The disclosure filing, called a Form 278, is required of senior government officials by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics within 45 days of any financial trade. It doesn't list specific amounts, only broad value ranges, and it's designated to ensure some level of transparency [...].

In the State of the Union this year, President Trump threw his support behind efforts to ban stock trading by members of Congress. But what he didn't say is that there's no such ban for presidents, and he didn't call for one [...].

In 2025, Mr. Trump's accounts traded almost exclusively in municipal and corporate bonds, which didn't raise conflict of interest concerns. But that changed in January this year, when Mr. Trump's accounts started to actively trade individual stocks, and some of the companies have ongoing direct involvement with the federal government.

Take Palantir Technologies. It has billions of dollars in contracts with the Trump administration, including a $1.3 billion contract with the Pentagon to develop A.I. systems to help orchestrate military operations.

Since January, Mr. Trump's account has made nine purchases of Palantir stock worth up to $680,000. When the stock declined nearly 15 percent in early April, Trump posted on TRUTH Social -- quote -- "Palantir Technologies has proven to have great war-fighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies."

Within 10 days, the stock had more than regained its value [...].

In early January, the president's account purchased between $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock. A week before, Commerce officials approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China.

In February, he purchased between $1 million and $5 million more just days before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with Meta.

Vice President J.D. Vance defended the trading in the president's portfolio.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

3) From Ben Protess' 6-19-26 NEW YORK TIMES article entitled "Inside Trump’s Stock Trading Surge":

The trades came in bursts, sometimes dozens or even hundreds in a day, all for the benefit of the Trump family.

In the first three months of the year, President Trump’s brokerage accounts placed more than 3,600 trades, as they bought and sold a wide variety of stocks and bonds, according to a disclosure form released last month.

On the surface, it appeared to be an unusual trading spree. In prior months, Mr. Trump typically reported a couple hundred trades or fewer. One disclosure last year showed only 25, The New York Times found.

Some of the trades early this year also appeared to be well timed, notably a purchase of Dell shares that came months before the company secured a lucrative government contract.

Mr. Trump’s critics contend that he is profiting from his presidency, and worry that he could be trading on inside information, while his supporters argue that any well-timed trades are coincidental. In a recent statement, Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, said that he and his family had no ability to direct the trading, all of which is controlled by outside brokerage firms [...].

Mr. Trump routinely namedrops companies in his social media posts and in public appearances. He owns shares in many of them.

But it would be difficult to ascertain whether these references were designed to affect a share price, or if they were simply musings.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

"Were they mere pawns in a fantastic game of international finance?"

--from the dust jacket copy of Lincoln Lawrence's WERE WE CONTROLLED? (1967)