Featured Image Credit: Sky News
Topics: Donald Trump, US News
Jess Battison
Just hours before the stock market surged on Wednesday (9 April) as Donald Trump paused tariffs, the president sent a ‘get rich warning’ to his people.
Talk of tariffs has been inescapable this month following ‘Liberation Day’.
And now even the real Wolf of Wall Street has weighed in, as he defended the warning Trump sent out to Americans.
Some of the leader’s opponents thought it was somewhat odd that he said it was a ‘great time to buy shares’ just hours before he made a bit of a U-turn on his big tariff policy.
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Having announced tariffs on the majority of countries around the world, Wednesday’s announcement peddled things back somewhat.
The US Treasury Secretary clarified that most countries would still be on a 10 percent baseline tariff but the 'reciprocal' higher tariffs would now be paused for 90 days.
And the ‘Wolf’ himself, Jordan Belfort, has said it’s not so ‘suspicious’ that Trump made the ‘get rich warning’ about four hours before this pause.
“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” he’d wrote on social media, as some questioned whether he’d been sending out some kind of signal to followers.
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But Belfort pointed out that this statement was public, not just him tipping off a handful of people.
“I personally don't find it overly suspicious. Especially since he's told it to everybody at once,” the former stockbroker told Sky News.
“If he hadn't said anything and told five of his best friends 'I'm gonna ease this tariff situation - you should be buying', that would be illegal.”
That would’ve come into the world of insider trading, when people use the non-public information to their advantage and make a gain on shares. Belfort previously pleaded guilty to fraud and related crimes in connection with stock-market manipulation.
“He [Trump] had been saying that all along [to buy], it wasn't the only time he'd said that,” Belfort added.
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“[Treasury] Secretary Bessent had been saying that too. It's a really basic piece of advice.”
The real Wolf of Wall Street went on to add that while he’s generally against tariffs, he believes Trump’s recent dramatic actions are necessary.
“The United States has been drained of its wealth, drained of its factories,” he said.
Belfort said the US has an ‘insane’ trade balance as he continued of the tariffs: “It's not gonna be pretty.
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“There's going to be pain - but the path we were on before is simply unsustainable. It had to change.”