19 hours ago
11
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
As of August, the president’s investment portfolio showed significantly more in bonds than in stocks. It is unclear if his personal holdings had any bearing on his decisions regarding tariffs.
By Ben ProtessAndrea Fuller and Joe Rennison
The reporters analyzed more than 4,200 of President Trump’s investment holdings to assess his exposure to moves in the financial markets.
April 18, 2025Updated 12:57 p.m. ET
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.
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.
