Photo by Raff Liu, Unsplash
Photo by Raff Liu, Unsplash
Trump is making significant profits on the global instability he’s inciting.
Republished with permission from Common Dreams, by Julia Conley
In a mandated filing with the Office of Government Ethics released Thursday, President Donald Trump was found to have made more than 1,000 stock transactions in June, including thousands of dollars invested in energy companies that were reaping record profits from the war Trump started with Iran.
Trump submitted financial disclosure forms to the OGE covering the second quarter of 2026, during which the Iran War continued, was paused for a ceasefire, and restarted again.
CBS News pointed to a “notable large transaction” on April 7, the day Trump declared a ceasefire with Iran after having threatened to destroy the country’s “entire civilization.” His investment accounts sold between $500,000 and $1 million of ExxonMobil stock that same day.
The filings were submitted days after Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) estimated that Trump’s oil and gas stocks have soared in value since before he began attacking Iran in February—an act that raised oil prices due to Iran’s retaliatory closing of the Strait of Hormuz. The holdings were estimated at $13 million to $46 million at the start of 2026 and $17 million to $61 million this month.
“President Trump saw his wealth go up by as much as $15.5 million just through stocks he owned in oil and gas companies at the end of 2025,” said the JEC Democrats. “These companies’ profits and stock values are rising because Trump’s reckless war in Iran has caused gas and oil prices to skyrocket.”
The JEC’s estimates were based on his holdings in 2025 and did not account for the trades he continued to make as the war dragged on.
“Trump’s war in Iran has inflicted higher energy and gas prices on the American people,” said Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). “Meanwhile, Trump’s brokers have been trading oil and gas stocks for him, helping him profit on the global instability he’s inciting. It’s profoundly unethical.”
The White House said the president does not make trades himself, but CREW president Donald Sherman told CBS News that Trump should not be making “significant profits on the global instability he’s inciting.”
“President Trump’s war of choice in Iran has cost the American people in the form of higher energy and gas prices and higher shipping costs,” Sherman said. “Meanwhile, Trump’s brokers have been trading oil and gas stocks for him… It doesn’t matter whether he’s trading the stocks himself—the president has a duty to avoid conflicts of interest between his finances and what’s best for the American people.”
Unlike other US presidents, Trump has refused to place his assets in a blind trust, instead continuing to hold stocks that are visible to him in all 11 sectors involved in the stock market.
In June, the president’s stock portfolio made a series of energy trades, including two sales and one purchase of ExxonMobil stock that were valued between $1,001 and $15,000. He also bought and sold Chevron stocks three times and made three sales of ConocoPhillips holdings.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said that the new filings show “Trump’s only focus is enriching himself at the expense of the American people.”
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