When President Trump paused a punishing round of global tariffs last week, he attributed his change of heart to one main thing.
“I was watching the bond market,” he said. “The bond market is very tricky.”
Mr. Trump should know — he had a big personal stake in it.
A New York Times analysis of Mr. Trump’s financial holdings shows that he had roughly $125 million to about $443 million invested in bonds as of last year, a range that far eclipsed his investment portfolio’s exposure to the stock market.
Mr. Trump does own a huge stake in his publicly traded social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, but he has said he has no plans to sell those shares, currently worth roughly $2 billion. The company’s stock, which he listed separately from his liquid stock and bond holdings on his latest financial disclosure, had already plunged about 40 percent this year before the new round of tariffs.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Mr. Trump appeared unfazed when the tariffs sent the stock market into a tailspin, wiping out trillions of dollars in value in a matter of days.
His nonchalance faded on April 9 after fears over the impact of Mr. Trump’s tariffs had spread to the government bond market, posing a potential existential threat to the global economy and signaling a weakening faith in U.S.-backed assets as a safe haven.Mr. Trump, whose own bond investments were also at risk, paused the most punitive of the import taxes for 90 days for all countries except China.
Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.
