Corruption: The road to crony capitalism

We may have just witnessed the 'biggest example of market manipulation in history'

(Image credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images)

published 21 April 2025

We may have just witnessed "the biggest example of market manipulation in history," said Sasha Abramsky in The Nation. President Trump's imposition of huge tariffs on nearly every country in the world had the stock market in a tailspin. But then last week, Trump told his followers on Truth Social "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!"—just hours before his announcement of a 90-day pause on the tariffs sent the market briefly soaring. "Many, many investors seemed to take note of Trump's rather open hints" that such a pause was coming. Though there's "not yet any evidence" of an illegal insider-trading scheme, said Bryan Metzger in Business Insider, Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) are demanding a federal investigation. Others in Congress are calling on any colleagues who followed Trump's advice "to come clean" now, since the law requires them to disclose stock trades within 30 days in any case. We'll soon see who profited.

Even if insider trading can't be proved, Trump's chaotic tariff policy "will inevitably result in a cascade of corruption," said Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post. When the economic rules become capricious, the only constant is the need to placate the people in power. "Countries and companies will descend on Washington to cut deals and gain carve-outs, exemptions, and special terms." For every tariff, there will be tariff waivers for a select few firms—already, Apple has persuaded Trump to pause the tax on smartphones. Our economy will be transformed "from the leading free market in the world to the leading example of crony capitalism." We saw this in my native Argentina, said Andres Oppenheimer in the Miami Herald, when a populist dictator imposed a protectionist regime. Favored businesses had no incentive to keep prices low or quality high. Inflation and debt skyrocketed, and the once wealthy nation became "an economic basket case."

The paradigm shift is already underway, said Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic. "Blatant conflicts of interest," any one of which would have been a scandal for any other president, are routine in Trumpworld. His family's cryptocurrency business, World Liberty Financial, is transparently "a vehicle for anyone to pay him indirect bribes." His properties are rented by anonymously owned shell companies. He suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Corporate Transparency Act, freeing up companies to launder money and buy off regulators. The state and the economy are slowly being reconfigured "not to benefit Americans but to benefit the president, his family, and his friends." Only voters can stop it.