“PANICANS are losers and failures! Don't be a PANICAN!!”

On 8 April 2025, as America shook under the impact of Donald Trump’s new tariffs, Georgia Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene had nothing but contempt for the worriers.

The outburst could have passed for a simple political provocation. A day later, it looked very different.

Because on 7 April, the congresswoman had quietly filed her mandatory disclosures with Congress, revealing a wave of purchases made on 4 April, exactly when the market hit its lowest point after the initial tariff announcement.

The official documents leave no room for doubt. Between 3 and 4 April, Marjorie Taylor Greene invested between $1,000 and $15,000 in each of around fifteen different companies: AMZN, AAPL, JPM, QCOM, LULU, RH, UPS, DELL, CAT, ODFL...

The list reads like a perfect index of tariff-sensitive companies, the very ones that would soar if the tariffs were suspended. A carefully selected basket of stocks, as if she had inside information.

The case of Restoration Hardware ($RH) is particularly striking. The stock had plunged nearly 40% between late March and early April, from $250 to around $147, after the tariff announcement. Greene bought it at its very lowest on 4 April. Five days later, after the tariff pause was announced, the stock jumped 33.11%, nearing $200. A surgical entry, to the day.

It was the first time she had ever bought the stock.

More troubling still: the gap between her words and her actions. On one side, she joined in what Trump dubbed the fight against the “panicans”. On the other, she quietly positioned her portfolio to fully capture a possible policy U-turn.

Technically, nothing Marjorie Taylor Greene did was illegal. Unlike cabinet members or senior officials, members of the US Congress can still freely buy and sell individual stocks. Unless, that is, they knew what was coming next.

That said, once again the timing is very troubling:

• An unusual volume of purchases concentrated in a very short period, unusual compared with her past trades;
• Perfect timing, just after the initial fall and just before the rebound
• Aggressive public messaging telling people not to worry about tariffs
• First-time purchases of certain stocks, such as RH, never before in her portfolio
• Exceptional performance from her picks, far above the market

Add to that her well-known closeness to Donald Trump, as one of his most fervent supporters in Congress, and the question naturally arises: did Marjorie Taylor Greene know the president was about to suspend the tariffs he had just imposed?