President-Investor: an investment in bonds or an investment in himself?

🚨 Reuters reports: Donald Trump purchased at least $82 million worth of bonds that directly benefit from the decisions of his own administration. Legally, this is not a direct violation of the law — and that’s perhaps the most alarming part of the story. The ethical aspect, the conflict of interest, and the question of integrity in public governance all end up in a situation where everything is “technically legal,” yet something unmistakably smells off.

In most developed democracies, such a situation would trigger a political firestorm. A scandal. Calls for resignation. Parliamentary committees. Public hearings. Because a basic principle of democratic governance is simple: government officials are not allowed to use public office for personal gain. Federal employees, senators, cabinet members — all are prohibited from participating in decisions that affect their financial interests. If there is a risk of conflict, they must either recuse themselves or divest the asset.

But the President of the United States has a unique loophole. Back in the 1960s, during the Cold War, Congress decided that a president constantly makes decisions that affect the entire economy at once — from energy to finance, from trade to defense. Therefore, it is impossible to avoid conflicts of interest. And Congress created an exception: the president and vice president are exempt from the general prohibition (18 U.S. Code § 208). The only requirement is financial disclosure.

This creates a paradox: the president can legally make decisions that bring him profit, and the law has nothing against it. Democratic norms — however — do.

That’s why U.S. presidents traditionally placed their assets in blind trusts or sold them entirely, ensuring no appearance of personal benefit. Obama did it. Bush did it. Clinton did it. It became an unwritten rule of decency: “Don’t profit from the office.”

Trump broke that tradition in 2017. He refused to sell the assets of the Trump Organization, did not create a blind trust, and instead transferred the business to his children while maintaining actual influence. Legally permissible. Politically unprecedented. The ethical questions have remained floating in the air ever since.

Such situations have already led to investigations in the U.S. In 2020, several senators came under scrutiny after learning about the approaching COVID pandemic in a closed briefing and immediately selling airline stocks — before the risks became public. Meaning: the rules work when it comes to ordinary politicians. But not the president.

How does it work in other democracies?

Consider global practice:

• United Kingdom: the prime minister must place assets in a blind trust and cannot know where the money is invested.
• France: the president must sell conflicting assets or hand them to an independent trustee.
• Germany: the chancellor cannot hold business interests that intersect with the office.
• Canada: the prime minister must either sell shares or use a blind trust — no exceptions.

In most democracies, such a story would trigger a cascade of legal and political consequences. Because mixing personal profit with state power instantly undermines institutional trust.

But in the United States, a strange duality appears: the system of checks and balances still exists, yet a few key gaps in the law allow the president to do what no one else is allowed to do.

So what’s happening? Is Trump undermining democracy from within — or simply using the rules he inherited?

U.S. President Donald Trump walks out of the Oval Office toward the presidential plane at the White House in Washington, D.C., November 14, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein.

It depends on how one defines democracy:

• If democracy is a system of laws — Trump acts within the letter of the law.

• If democracy is a system of norms, trust, and political culture — his actions strike at its very foundation.

Because democracy rests not only on written rules, but also on the unwritten ones — the things leaders should not do, even when they can.

⏳ And today we are watching the widening gap between legality and ethics.