Warren calls on the SEC to examine the trade with Trump’s tariff break

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat of Massachusetts, asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether President Trump has violated the securities laws while reversing the course on his global tariffs.

In early Wednesday, during a time of intensely volatile trade, Mr. Trump wrote on social media: “This is a great time for sale !!!” Hours later, he announced a 90-day break for many tariffs and sent the S&P 500 by more than 7 percent in just a few minutes. Wednesday was the best day for the S&P 500 since the 2008 financial crisis was relaxed.

“In the past few days, President Trump has announced a number of unpredictable, ruthless tariffs that led to significant market crash,” Senator Warren wrote in a letter to Paul Atkins, the chairman of the Sec “as a direct episode of this chaos, the US -financial markets recorded in the course of a few days.”

She added: “It is unclear which officials and connected companies of President Trump have advanced about his plans to delay the tariffs – but insiders may have known that he would announce a tariff break and improve the market.”

A spokesman for the White House did not answer a request for a comment on the letter.

Mr. Trump decided to stop the tariffs after a rapid increase in bond yields and to increase concern about the economic consequences of the fast and drastic reset of global trade policy.

It is anything but certain that Senator Warren’s letter was an eighth opponent of Mr. Atkins, which accused her of having conflicts of interest from his work with banks and financial companies. Mr. Atkins, who founded Patomak Global Partners, a consulting company for financial services, was confirmed by the Senate this week.

The letter, the list of the signatories of the Senator Chuck Schumer from New York, the minority leader, underlines, underlines the growing examination of Mr. Trump before the official announcement to pause the tariffs. On Thursday, representative Maxine Waters from California sent a letter to the Sec and the US accountability in which she applied for an investigation.

A special concern for Ms. Waters was an increase in trade with the call options – or bet that a share will increase – in the period that is right in front of Mr. Trump’s announcement.

“The timing and the scale of the call option suggest that an administration officer or perhaps the president himself provided friends or employees with a heads in the announcement,” wrote Ms. Waters.

Financial experts said they had not seen any immediate evidence of insider trade and that many of the custody peaks had taken place at the same time on Wednesday. “Speed ​​is not illegal,” said Steve Sosnick, the chief strategist at Interactive Brokers.

Nevertheless, said Sosnick in view of the market volatility and the strong trade volume in relation to the announcement, it would be very difficult to determine illegal activities from looking at market movements.

“Just because I can’t find a smoking weapon does not mean that there is none,” he said.

In her letter to Mr. Atkins, Senator Warren asked what steps the SEC would take to examine potential market manipulation or insider trade. She also asked whether the cost reduction efforts would affect the agency’s ability to carry out investigations.

Zolan Kanno-Young Reported reports.