Washington — President Trump’s investment accounts have continued to buy and sell stakes in oil and natural gas companies as he oversees the U.S. war with Iran, according to his financial disclosure statements through the second quarter of 2026. As the Iran war continued, paused for a ceasefire and then restarted, Trump has bought and sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of oil and gas stocks, according to the most recent data available from the Office of Government Ethics. Trump has an extensive portfolio with holdings in all 11 sectors, and a CBS News investigation showed that in the first three months of the year, his accounts executed about 3,600 stock or securities transactions, with a total value ranging from $212 million to $695 million. Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee estimated this week that the president’s holdings in oil and gas companies have increased in value from a range of $13 million to $46 million earlier this year, to between $17 million and $61 million as of mid-August. Filers are only required to report ranges of transactions, not specific dollar amounts. The estimates were based on his stock holdings in 2025 and did not take into account the trades he made since then. Energy stocks rose during that period, which spans the U.S. operation in Venezuela in early January and the war with Iran, which began in late February. The White House said Trump is not involved in his business dealings. The purchases and sales of energy stocks make up a small portion of the president’s overall net worth, which Forbes estimated at more than $6 billion as of August 26. Trump has refused to place his assets in a blind trust. Owning individual stocks, as opposed to indices or other mutual funds, means you still maintain visible assets in your spheres of influence. One major and notable transaction in CBS News’ review of the president’s oil trades was on April 7, the day the president declared a ceasefire in the war with Iran. His investment accounts sold between $500,000 and $1 million in ExxonMobil stock, according to a financial disclosure report Trump filed in late June. The company’s stock price closed at $163.91 on April 7, before Trump announced the ceasefire that night, and opened down 6.5% at $153.52 on April 8. During the first half of the year, the president also bought and sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in Chevron, ConocoPhillips and other oil and gas companies. The OGE requires government officials to report purchases and sales of stocks exceeding $1,000 within 45 days of a transaction or within 30 days of becoming aware of it, so the office’s records are not always up to date. Trump was late in filing some of his 2026 transactions. The White House says independent managers make decisions about the president’s stock portfolio, and Trump has no influence on when to sell or buy stocks or securities. “President Trump’s stock and bond portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions,” said White House spokesman Davis Ingle. Ingle added that all of the president’s holdings “are held in discretionary accounts and invested through computer-based model portfolios that automatically replicate recognized indices, such as the Schwab 1000.” And Ingle said that no one in the Trump family “has the ability to direct, influence or provide input into how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold.” When CBS News reported on the president’s past trading in June, some fund managers said they believed the transactions were part of a strategy to reduce his tax bill. David Salem, a portfolio manager at Hedgeye Asset Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said at the time that he thought the trades were a “classic tax-loss harvesting activity,” a practice in which investment managers sell some securities at losses so they can offset gains elsewhere. All of that can be automated, he said. “The manager and managers, plural, who are doing this for Trump are probably doing it for tens of thousands of other customers,” Salem told CBS News. “You can’t do this kind of direct indexing that you see in the presentation unless you have pretty sophisticated computers and legal and tax gurus to figure this all out.” The war with Iran has generated high profits for publicly traded oil companies, while global oil prices remain elevated. Earlier this month, when asked about ExxonMobil and Chevron’s profits, the president said, “They’re making too much money.” Donald Sherman, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, said the president should not benefit financially from rising oil prices. “President Trump’s chosen war in Iran has cost the American people in the form of higher energy and gas prices and higher shipping costs,” Sherman told CBS News. “Meanwhile, Trump’s traders have been trading oil and gas stocks for him, giving Trump significant profits thanks to the global instability he is inciting. It doesn’t matter if he himself is trading the stocks: the president has a duty to avoid conflicts of interest between his finances and what is best for the American people.” Presidents, members of Congress and other federal officials are legally allowed to trade individual stocks, although some members of both parties have proposed banning the practice.Mr. Trump, the richest president in modern history, is much more active in the stock market than his recent predecessors. George W. Bush kept his assets in a blind trust during his presidency. Barack Obama stuck to index and mutual funds and Treasury notes, and Joe Biden owned no individual stocks. More from CBS News Go deeper with The Free Press in:
