Billionaire Carl Icahn dropped $31.3 million dollars of stock in Manitowoc Company Inc. on February 22, only days before Trump announced heavy tariffs on imported steel.  Manitowoc is heavily dependent on steel manufacturing.  Icahn sold the stock at around $33, but it dropped to $26 after Trump’s announcement.

Before February, Icahn was not actively trading Manitowoc stock. According to regulatory filings, he did not buy or sell any shares of Manitowoc between January 17, 2015 and February 11, 2018.

But Icahn suddenly out of nowhere ups and decides to shed all this stock all at once.

Hummmm … you’d think he knew Donald Trump.

And you’d, of course, be right.

Icahn, a billionaire investor with far-flung holdings, is a close associate of Trump — who invoked Icahn’s name repeatedly on the campaign trail. Once in office, Trump installed Icahn as a “special adviser,” although Icahn did not not unwind his business entanglements before accepting the position.

Icahn resigned as special adviser last August shortly before the New Yorker hinted that Icahn was using this long friendship withTrump to enrich himself.

Now all this gets really weird when you remember that Trump had to hide from everybody on his staff that he was going to raise the tariffs.  Maybe, just maybe, he and Carl had a secret.

Maybe.

In “King Icahn,” a 1993 biography, the author, Mark Stevens, described his subject as a “germophobic, detached, relatively loveless man,” and quoted one contemporary saying, “Carl’s dream in life is to have the only fire truck in town. Then when your house is in flames, he can hold you up for every penny you have.”

Yep, twins.

Thanks to Billy for the heads up.