Democrats call on SEC to investigate trading around Trump’s abrupt tariff pause
Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, minority leader Chuck Schumer and colleagues have sent a letter to the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to determine whether Donald Trump, any members of his cabinet, or other donors, insiders, and administration officials engaged in insider trading, market manipulation, or other securities laws violations.
Trump’s dramatic about-face on his trade war shocked investors and led to big rises in stock markets around the world, igniting accusations of market manipulation and insider trading.
Warren wrote on X:
Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos? Today with @SenSchumer and Senate Democrats, I officially called for an SEC investigation to find out. Presidents are not kings.
The letter reads:
We urge the SEC to investigate whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public and whether any insiders, including the President’s family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the President’s announcement.
It goes on to highlight that the US president posted it was “a great time to buy” on social media just hours before abruptly pausing his tariff impositions for most countries. The timing of his posts and subsequent huge share jumps has sparked accusations of market manipulation.
Before pausing the tariffs that threw markets into disarray, President Trump appears to have previewed his plans to do so on Truth Social: at 9:37 am, he announced, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” His official announcement of the tariff pause came roughly 4 hours later at 1:18 pm.
(In my colleague Lauren Almeida’s story from yesterday, she noted: “Trump does not usually sign off his post with his initials. Those letters happen to be the same as the ticker for Trump Media & Technology Group, the business that controls Truth Social, whose stock shot up by 22% on Wednesday.”)
The senators’ letter also asked how Trump administration cuts to the SEC might impact the agency’s ability to respond to large-scale market events and pursue enforcement actions. They have requested answers by 25 April.
Yesterday I reported that Democratic senators Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego (who are also signatories to this letter) are demanding that the Office of Government Ethics investigate potential conflicts of interest and insider trading of White House and executive branch officials who may have been privy to Trump’s 90-day pause on steep tariffs.
You can follow all the latest from the markets on our business blog:
Key events
Profits at major US banks beat forecasts in the first quarter as stock trading jumped, but executives on Friday warned of economic turbulence as sweeping tariffs could fuel risks and weigh on economic growth.
Reuters has this report:
Equity traders at JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley brought in record revenue as markets boomed early in the year, while Wells Fargo earned more fees from clients. But industry executives said consumers and corporations were becoming more cautious about US president Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which have roiled markets and could spur inflation and tip the economy into recession.
“The first quarter was a pretty good start to the year in terms of trading and even business activity, but what happens in the second quarter is still unknown, including the impact on markets, mergers and acquisitions,” said Brian Mulberry, portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management. “It is going to be a tale of two different quarters.”
While it is too early to understand the full implications of the tariffs, households and businesses were starting to respond to the import levies, executives at the biggest US lenders said.
Richard Partington
In the global fallout from Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement, it appears nowhere is safe. Crashing share prices, a sell-off in bonds and currency chaos erasing trillions of dollars of wealth in a matter of days.
On Friday the dollar fell by more than 1% relative to a basket of other currencies to reach its lowest level in three years, compounding an almost 10% slide since the start of the year. In the space of a week, it has lost about 3 cents against the pound and 4 cents against the euro.
Even after the president’s partial U-turn – freezing tariffs at 10% on all US imports except those from China for 90 days – markets swung from relief rally to fresh rout, as investors questioned the once unthinkable: could the US dollar be losing its unassailable safe haven status?
“The damage has been done,” said George Saravelos, the head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank. “The market is re-assessing the structural attractiveness of the dollar as the world’s global reserve currency and is undergoing a process of rapid de-dollarisation.”
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Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on Friday that Democrats are “totally united” in response to Donald Trump’s tarrifs.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Schumer said:
“We are totally united, that you don’t see any divisions in the Democrats the way you do with the Republicans.”
He went on to add:
“For instance, when we had our first vote on the budget reconciliation, we had 27 amendments. Every Democrat supported every one of those amendments. We had no defections. They’re beginning to show cracks and defecting because they know embracing Trump is not what the American people want. And we Democrats are showing them that every day.”
Pentagon to end $5.1bn in contracts with companies including Accenture and Deloitte citing ‘Doge findings’
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the termination of several information technology services contracts valued at $5.1bn, including companies such as Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton and Deloitte, Reuters reports citing a Pentagon memo.
The contracts “represent non-essential spending on third party consultants” for services Pentagon employees can perform, Hegseth said in the memo released late on Thursday. “These terminations represent $5.1bn in wasteful spending,” Hegseth said, adding that their termination would result in “nearly $4bn in estimated savings.”
During morning trading in New York shares of Booz Allen Hamilton were down 2.4% to $106.30 and Accenture shares were down 2% to $279.52.
Representatives for Accenture, Deloitte and Booz Allen Hamilton did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The contracts appeared to be wide-ranging cuts to consulting services for the Navy, the Air Force, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Defense Health Agency.
In a video posted on X, Hegseth said the contracts were for “ancillary things like consulting and other non-essential services.” He said the services would be brought in-house.
In the memo Hegseth said he was directing the Pentagon’s chief information officer to work over the next 30 days with tech billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called and unofficial “department of government efficiency” to prepare a plan to cut and in-source the Defense Department’s information technology consulting and management services.
Additionally, the memo said the Pentagon would negotiate the “most favorable rates” for cloud computing services.
US law firms quietly scrub DEI references from websites to appease Trump
Sam Levine
Nearly two dozen US law firms have quietly scrubbed references to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from their website and revised descriptions of pro-bono work to more closely align with Donald Trump’s priorities, a Guardian review has found, underscoring the Trump administration’s successful campaign of intimidation against the legal profession.
The changes, which have occurred at some of the nation’s most prestigious firms, include eliminating mention of pro-bono immigration work from firm websites and deleting sections entirely related to DEI. In some cases, firms appear to have dropped the word “diversity” from descriptions of their work. In at least one case, a change included revising a quote from firm partners to eliminate mention of diversity and inclusion.
The Guardian contacted all of the firms mentioned in this story. None responded to a request for comment.
Many of the steps taken by law firms to capitulate to Trump are being tracked in a speradsheet by the Coalition for Justice, an alliance of progressive student organizations at Georgetown law school in Washington DC. About a dozen students are keeping a spreadsheet of how hundreds of firms are responding.
Mari Latibashvili, a second-year law student who is a leader of Coalition for Justice and has been helping with the tracker, said:
The administration’s attacks are so blatantly illegal and unconstitutional that the law firms choosing to comply in advance is really a slap in the face for the legal profession.
It’s them saying that they’re not willing to stand up for these very basic fundamental constitutional rights – the rule of law, legal ethics and just freedom of speech and expression – I think are just fundamental things that we all learn about first year of law school.
‘Warning for everybody’: US attorney Habba investigating New Jersey governor over immigration enforcement policy
The top federal prosecutor in New Jersey says she has launched an investigation into Democratic governor Phil Murphy and state attorney general Matt Platkin over the state’s directive to local law enforcement not to cooperate with federal agent conducting immigration enforcement.
Alina Habba, appointed last month by Donald Trump as the interim US attorney for the state, announced the investigation as “a warning for everybody” on Thursday evening on Fox News.
I want it to be a warning for everybody that I have instructed my office today to open an investigation into Governor Murphy, to open an investigation into Attorney General Platkin.
Both Murphy’s office and Platkin’s office declined to comment.
A partner in a small New Jersey law firm near Trump’s Bedminster golf course, Habba served as a senior adviser for Trump’s political action committee, defended him in court in several civil lawsuits and acted as a spokesperson last year as he volleyed between courtrooms and the campaign trail.
The Associated Press reports that Murphy’s administration has been largely supportive of immigration. Under his tenure, Platkin’s predecessor issued a guideline limiting cooperation between local New Jersey police and immigration officials. A bill that would make the directive state law is pending in the legislature, but hasn’t advanced.
The policy and the pending bill have gotten renewed attention since Trump’s second administration began and immigration officials arrested people in Newark soon after the inauguration. The arrests led immigrant rights advocates to call out “Where’s Governor Murphy?” during a news conference held by Newark’s mayor to deride the immigration enforcement.
US markets slip at the open while Trump says ‘very exciting’ tariff policy ‘doing really well’
Donald Trump has claimed his tariff policy is “doing really well”, calling it “very exciting” for the US and the rest of the world. He posted on his Truth Social platform:
We are doing really well on our TARIFF POLICY. Very exciting for America, and the World!!! It is moving along quickly. DJT
Meanwhile, as of the last few minutes Wall Street is open and amid the escalating trade war US stock are down at the start of trading.
Across the main indexes, the S&P 500 is down 6 points or -0.1% at 5,262 points, the Dow is down 64 points or -0.16% at 39,529 points, while the Nasdaq is down 9 points or -0.06% at 16,377 points.
The US dollar also suffered a further blow as a result of Beijing’s retaliatory 125% tariff announcement earlier, falling to a three-year low.
Democrats call on SEC to investigate trading around Trump’s abrupt tariff pause
Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, minority leader Chuck Schumer and colleagues have sent a letter to the chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to determine whether Donald Trump, any members of his cabinet, or other donors, insiders, and administration officials engaged in insider trading, market manipulation, or other securities laws violations.
Trump’s dramatic about-face on his trade war shocked investors and led to big rises in stock markets around the world, igniting accusations of market manipulation and insider trading.
Warren wrote on X:
Did President Trump tip off big donors or family to cash in on his tariff chaos? Today with @SenSchumer and Senate Democrats, I officially called for an SEC investigation to find out. Presidents are not kings.
The letter reads:
We urge the SEC to investigate whether the tariff announcements, which caused the market crash and subsequent partial recovery, enriched administration insiders and friends at the expense of the American public and whether any insiders, including the President’s family, had prior knowledge of the tariff pause that they abused to make stock trades ahead of the President’s announcement.
It goes on to highlight that the US president posted it was “a great time to buy” on social media just hours before abruptly pausing his tariff impositions for most countries. The timing of his posts and subsequent huge share jumps has sparked accusations of market manipulation.
Before pausing the tariffs that threw markets into disarray, President Trump appears to have previewed his plans to do so on Truth Social: at 9:37 am, he announced, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.” His official announcement of the tariff pause came roughly 4 hours later at 1:18 pm.
(In my colleague Lauren Almeida’s story from yesterday, she noted: “Trump does not usually sign off his post with his initials. Those letters happen to be the same as the ticker for Trump Media & Technology Group, the business that controls Truth Social, whose stock shot up by 22% on Wednesday.”)
The senators’ letter also asked how Trump administration cuts to the SEC might impact the agency’s ability to respond to large-scale market events and pursue enforcement actions. They have requested answers by 25 April.
Yesterday I reported that Democratic senators Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego (who are also signatories to this letter) are demanding that the Office of Government Ethics investigate potential conflicts of interest and insider trading of White House and executive branch officials who may have been privy to Trump’s 90-day pause on steep tariffs.
You can follow all the latest from the markets on our business blog:
Helen Davidson
China raises US tariffs to 125% as Xi invites EU to team up against Trump ‘bullying’
China has raised its tariffs on US products to 125% in the latest salvo of the trade dispute with Washington, just hours after Xi Jinping said there were “no winners in a tariff war”.
Xi made the comments during a meeting with the Spanish prime minister in which he invited the EU to work with China to resist “bullying”, part of an apparent campaign to shore up other trading partners.
The Chinese commerce ministry announced on Friday it was raising the 84% tariffs on all US imports to 125%, again saying that China was ready to “fight to the end”. The statement also suggested it may be Beijing’s last move in the tit-for-tat tariff rises as “at the current tariff level, there is no market acceptance for US goods exported to China”.
“If the US continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US, China will ignore it,” it said, flagging that there were other countermeasures to come.
Some markets continued to tumble on Friday, as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the US president’s 90-day tariff pause – which sets most tariffs at 10% until July – as “fragile”.
Asian indices followed Wall Street lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei down nearly 5% and Hong Kong stocks heading towards the biggest weekly decline since 2008. Oil prices were also expected to drop for a second consecutive week.
Chinese officials have been canvassing other trading partners about how to deal with the US tariffs, after the country was excluded from Donald Trump’s 90-day pause of the steepest global tariffs. Instead the US president made consecutive increases to duties on Chinese imports, which are now 145%.
Gabrielle Canon
California’s $59bn agriculture industry reels under Trump’s wavering tariffs
California’s $59bn agricultural industry is bracing for disruption as Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to spike tensions and trigger economic turmoil with China – one of the state’s biggest buyers.
California is the country’s breadbasket, supplying roughly one-third of US vegetables and 75% of its fruits and nuts. But it also exports much of its produce – close to $24bn worth in 2022. This means farmers in the state could lose out significantly as China imposes retaliatory tariffs on American goods.
The threat of another prolonged trade war has contributed to growing uncertainty in an industry where decisions often have to be made long before harvests or sales. It’s difficult for producers to decide to cull or keep dairy cows from their herds, rip plants tended to for years from the soil or pluck trellises of grapevines from their pastures.
Already grappling with extreme weather events that have damaged or destroyed crops and water restrictions that added challenges, a spate of Trump policies – including attacks on agricultural research, a funding freeze of billions from the US Department of Agriculture, and crackdowns on migrant workers – have left farmers reeling.
Zachary Williams, sales director for Stewart & Jasper Orchards in Newman, California, said:
The uncertainty is probably more of a problem than the tariff itself. Uncertainty about whether there will be, or won’t be, is a little harder to plan around.