On Thursday April 10, US President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs on all nations except China, which he doubled-down on, making tariffs on their goods 145%.
The pause breathed new life into the stock market, but Trump had posted something on Truth Social right before doing so, which many are finding suspicious.
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The tariffs had been suffocating the stock market
The stock market is only now catching its breath after Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs imposed on goods entering the US.
The tariffs had been making brokers and investors anxious as the stock market faced its worst day since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump had imposed tariffs on most nations
The US President had announced on April 2, a day he called ‘Liberation Day’ that tariffs would be imposed on goods coming from many nations across the globe into America. He said this would ‘Make America Wealthy Again’.
Some countries got tariffs higher than others
With tariffs imposed on more than 60 countries, including islands only inhabited by penguins, most of them received a baseline tariff of 10%.
Others faced Trump’s wrath with more intensity, with EU countries getting a 20% tariff on their goods and China in particular getting 145% (although it didn’t start off this high, but the US and China seem to be entering a trade war).
The stock market lost $2 trillion in 25 seconds
As per The Economist, as soon as Trump announced his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, the stock market lost $2 trillion in just 25 seconds, so you can imagine the damage this has done.
But since Trump announced a 90-day pause on tariffs yesterday, the stock market was able to catch its breath.
Stocks are high again
The sudden change of heart saw US shares in the S&P 500 increasing by 7% by mid-day after Trump announced a 90-day pause. They closed the day with a 9.5% increase while Dow Jones soared by 7.8%.
World markets have also been doing better since the announcement on Thursday, with Japan’s benchmark increasing by more than 9%.
But people noticed something strange about Trump’s posts
So the stock market has been doing better since Trump’s 90-day pause as investors welcomed the idea of putting their money into it again.
But people noticed one thing that Trump posted on his social media app Truth Social which they are finding a bit odd.
He posted it just hours before the announcement
At 9:37am, just hours before he announced the pause, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”
Some people have pointed out that the direction for people to ‘buy’ and invest is suspicious given the timing of the post. Some believe the President could be manipulating the markets.
Mike Levin posted about it on Twitter
Taking to Twitter/X, California Democrat representative Mike Levin said, “Trump posts THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!—then caves on tariffs hours later. Market surges. Middle-class investors who sold during the chaos lose big. Insiders win again.”
“This is market manipulation to help his base profit. How is this legal or OK?” he said.
He also added in a follow-up video that people who listened to Trump’s advice and bought “did great” while those who sold their stocks “got screwed.” He said, “This is market manipulation at its worst.”
People online have been reacting to the post
One person online wrote, “He’s intentionally tanking the stocks so that all of the billionaires can buy low and then cancel the tariffs so that they all get even richer. Manipulating the market. Disgusting.”
Another said, “So, [Trump] f**kin tanks markets to increase the market? There’s a word for that: ILLEGAL.”
Another person also said that this presents ‘levels of insanity we’ve never seen before.’
Trump insist the pause ‘had to be done’
Speaking about the 90-day pause on tariffs, Trump said it ‘had to be done’ because people were ‘getting yippy.’
“I did a 90-day pause for the people that didn’t retaliate because I told them ‘if you retaliate, we’re going to double it’ – and that’s what I did with China,” he said. “It’s all going to work out amazing.”
