Let’s take a step back and take stock of what happened after Donald Trump imposed his reckless worldwide tariffs.

Americans watched their retirement accounts take a hit. Businesses started hiking up prices, with many beginning to prepare for layoffs. Consumer confidence hit its lowest point in years as millions of Americans wondered if they’d have a job in three months.

And Trump’s Wall Street buddies got — in his words — “yippy.” That seems to have been what caught his attention.

On Wednesday, Trump made a couple of big moves. First, he shared some investing advice on Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT”

By the way: “DJT” is the Wall Street ticker for Trump’s media company. As soon as he posted that message, his company’s stock price went through the roof.

Then, just hours later, he paused a whole slew of tariffs. Stocks soared, and anyone who’d taken Trump’s tip — maybe including the wealthy donors he dines with at Mar-A-Lago — started seeing dollar signs flash before their eyes.

Did we just see market manipulation and corruption in plain sight?

Two things here:

1. I’m calling for an independent investigation into whether Trump or anyone on his team intentionally manipulated the market to help out his billionaire buddies, and whether they engaged in insider trading.

2. On top of the potential corruption, Trump’s trade war chaos is hurting real people. Congress can and must take the blow torch out of his hands right now.

I’ve introduced bipartisan legislation that would roll back Trump’s bogus authority for launching this trade war in the first place. You see, Trump’s tariff policy is based on a law that says the president can take certain steps to respond to extraordinary threats and declare national emergencies. But Trump just declared that our long-standing trade relationships with dozens of countries counted as a national emergency. That’s not how this works.

Bottom line: Trump is not a king and Congress is not powerless. This is a moment for Republicans to show some backbone, and a few of them already did last week when they joined every Democrat in voting to reverse this disastrous trade war. If you’re with me in this fight to prevent Trump from sabotaging our economy, add your name to show your support for my resolution that would undo Trump’s emergency declaration.

Look: tariffs can be an important tool in the economic toolbox, but they’ve got to be used like any tool — in the right way, and carefully.

Trump’s tariff policies are too broad, too across the board, and apply to way too many countries.

He keeps engaging in magical thinking about who’d pay for tariffs and how fast industries can spring up.

And like the rest of Trump’s agenda, his tariffs would hit the millions of Americans who are just scraping by the hardest. As Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell noted, under a Trump-style trade war, inflation would probably rise and make life even more unaffordable for working families everywhere.

Those are the people who get kicked in the teeth when our economy goes under. You can measure a recession with all kinds of fancy charts and graphics, but at the end of the day, they hit our nation one household at a time. Millions of people can lose their jobs, their savings, and their retirement. And in a Trump trade war, they’d also take on higher costs. So much for those lower prices Trump promised on the campaign trail, huh?

It took us years to dig our way out of the 2008 crash. But unlike the Great Recession, or the economic crisis from Covid, this economic chaos has been created by one man: Donald Trump.

Trump’s abrupt reversal doesn’t erase the damage that has already been done, or help the uncertainty millions of Americans and businesses are facing. It’s up to Congress to remove his fake emergency authority to slap tariffs on our friends and foes alike, with little rhyme or reason.

Republican members of Congress are already feeling uneasy about Trump’s tariff policies. A handful of them voted to reverse Trump’s “emergency” declaration justifying a trade war with Canada — but a handful isn’t enough. We need more Republicans to stiffen their spines and pass our resolution to protect families, businesses, and the United States’ position in the world.

Add your name to demand swift action to rein in this attack on our economy and stop Trump’s disastrous trade war agenda.

Thanks for being a part of this,

Elizabeth