United States President Donald Trump has bought more than $100m in company and municipal bonds since his return to the White House, financial disclosures show, providing a window into the management of the billionaire’s wealth in office.
The filings released by the US Office of Government Ethics on Wednesday detail nearly 700 financial purchases made by Trump from his January 21 inauguration to August 1.
The purchases include bonds issued by the financial giants Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, as well as those from corporate household names such as Meta, UnitedHealth, T-Mobile and The Home Depot.
Dozens of US states, including Texas, Florida and New York, are represented in the purchases of municipal bonds, with Trump’s investments spanning hospitals, schools, airports, ports and gas projects.
The documents do not provide the value of each transaction, only broad ranges, such as $100,001-$250,000 and $1,000,001-$5,000,000.
Trump did not report any sales during the period.
A type of fixed-income investment, bonds are a loan to a government authority or company in exchange for a specified rate of interest.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but US media cited administration officials as saying that Trump and his family were not directly involved in the transactions.
Under legislation passed in 1978 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, US presidents are required to disclose a broad accounting of their finances, but they are not obligated to divest from assets that could potentially raise conflicts of interest.
Before Trump, all US presidents going back to 1978, set up a blind trust or committed to limiting their investments to diversified mutual funds upon taking office.
Trump controversially dispensed with that tradition, instead passing control of his business empire to a trust managed by his children.
Government ethics experts have for years raised concerns about the intersection between Trump’s governance and his personal fortune.
Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer in the administration of former President George W Bush, noted that Trump’s bond holdings stand to rise in value if the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates as he has demanded.
“When interest rates go down, bond prices go up,” Painter told Al Jazeera. “No wonder he’s leaning on the Fed for a rate cut!”
While Trump’s exact net wealth is unclear, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index last month estimated the US president to be worth $6.4bn.
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