Trump’s Personal Investments and Government by Deal

Tad DeHaven

President Trump’s latest financial disclosures do not prove that he personally timed investments around his administration’s decision-making. 

That’s not the point, though. 

Bloomberg reported on May 14 that Trump’s first-quarter disclosures show a series of stock and bond purchases involving major American companies, including Nvidia, Intel, and Boeing. The filings report transactions in broad ranges, do not make clear how many involved equities, and do not require Trump to specify the exact class of asset traded. The White House also previously said that independent financial managers manage Trump’s investments through programs that replicate recognized indexes. 

Bloomberg also noted that Trump, unlike his predecessors, did not divest or place his assets in a blind trust with an independent overseer. But even if independent financial managers make his investment decisions, the issue is that Trump retains financial interests while exercising extraordinary discretion over companies and sectors affected directly by his administration’s policies. 

The Trump administration has spent the past year treating policymaking like a series of business transactions. So, when the president can decide which firms receive export permission, tariff relief, merger approval, or even a direct government ownership stake, his personal investments become a public concern. 

Regardless of whether one views Trump’s deal-making as multi-dimensional chess or cartoonish self-puffery, a neutral policy framework that applies broadly and predictably is vastly preferable to government-by-deal. With the latter, companies and investors must constantly ask where they stand with the president, rather than focus on customers, costs, and sound business judgment. 

Consider a few of the companies named in the disclosures:

• Nvidia’s semiconductor chips are central to AI, and their foreign sales depend heavily on export control decisions. Trump already turned that authority into a revenue scheme by allowing Nvidia’s H200 chips to be exported in exchange for the government getting a 25 percent cut of the sales. The Financial Times noted that Trump’s filings show 15 transactions relating to Nvidia during the first quarter. 
• Intel is an even clearer example. Six of Trump’s trades involved Intel, the same company that Trump bullied into giving the government a 10 percent federal ownership stake in. 
• Boeing is another. The Financial Times noted seven transactions involving Boeing, including one purchase valued between $1 million and $5 million. In April, the FT quoted a US special envoy working to promote Boeing sales overseas as saying, “If you want to make the president happy, buy Boeing.” 

Again, none of this requires assuming that the investments reflect the president’s intention to profit from his administration’s policies (although critics would point out that there’s a mountain of evidence to the contrary elsewhere).

But this is what happens when the federal government acts not as a referee but as a dealmaker, investor, and gatekeeper. Every decision becomes suspect, every investment becomes a potential conflict, and every company wants to know how to get on the right side of the person who can help it or hurt it. 

While others are welcome to suggest disclosure reforms or other remedies, the best answer is to stop giving presidents so much discretionary power over individual companies in the first place. The executive branch shouldn’t be taking equity stakes in private companies, trading export permissions for revenue, or treating merger reviews and foreign sales like a television game show. 

Markets require general rules to function properly, not personalized bargains—Trump’s financial disclosures are a reminder of why.