U.S. President Donald Trump made hundreds of millions of dollars worth of U.S. corporate securities in the first quarter of this year.
According to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) public data cited by Bloomberg and Reuters on the 15th (local time), President Trump made more than 3,700 major corporate securities transactions involving interests with the administration in the first quarter.
Nvidia, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, Boeing, and Costco each purchased at least $1 million (about 1.5 billion won) during the period. In February, they also sold three tech companies' securities, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon, for between $5 million and $20 million (about 7.5 billion to 30 billion won), respectively.
The transaction also included securities linked to several companies, including Broadcom, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, eBay, Abbott Laboratories, Uber Technologies, AT&T and Dollar Tree.
OGE data did not specify whether the type of corporate securities Trump traded were stocks or corporate bonds. The transaction value was specified in a range instead of the exact amount.
Based on this, President Trump's cumulative transactions in the first quarter are worth at least $220 million (about 329.8 billion won) and up to $750 million (about 1.12 trillion won). Although it is difficult to calculate the exact value of the transaction, Bloomberg explained that an average of more than 40 transactions per day are noticeable for three months.
Matthew Tuttle, CEO of asset management company Tuttle Capital Management, said President Trump's securities transaction is "insanely a deal" and "like a hedge fund with huge algorithmic transactions."
The disclosure of the securities transaction has rekindled concerns over conflicts of interest that have consistently followed President Trump.
The U.S. federal ethics law enacted in 1978 did not mandate that the president "dispose assets that may cause conflicts of interest." However, previous U.S. presidents voluntarily disposed of assets that could cause conflicts of interest or blindly trusted them.
Mr. Trump is the first president to not follow this tradition since legislation. Mr. Trump's assets are kept in a family trust managed by his children.
President Trump has taken a number of policy measures affecting companies he has traded with, including Nvidia and Boeing, and regularly interacts with the management of those companies.
He also took a number of heads of companies he invested in, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Boeing CEO Kelly Otberg, on his recent visit to China.
In particular, CEO Jensen Huang, who was not initially included in the list of Chinese businessmen, reportedly joined belatedly from Alaska, a stopover, at the request of President Trump.
For this reason, criticism has been steadily raised that President Trump confuses public obligations with personal business interests and uses the presidency to gain financial gains.
"President Trump's investment assets are maintained through full-time asset management accounts independently managed by third-party financial institutions that have exclusive and full authority over all investment decisions," said a spokesperson for Trump's family business, the Trump Group. "Neither President Trump, his family, nor the Trump Group play any role in the selection, direction or approval of certain investments," he added.
Under the federal ethics law, the U.S. president is obliged to report financial transactions of himself, his spouse and dependent children. As a result, President Trump has been disclosing transactions since his second term in office early last year.
Meanwhile, the law requires officials to report within 45 days of a transaction. This time, Trump's two reports were overdue, with fines of only $200 (about W300,000) per disclosure. OGE data showed that Trump paid all of these fines.
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Lee Hyung-gil (road@ikbc.co.kr )
Conflict of interest is one of the most serious issues concerning President Trump.
The decisions he has made so far have had an enormous impact on the market, and it is impossible to know what personal gains he may have obtained in the process.
It seems clear that an investigation into him will be necessary after his term ends.