> If you're trading, like, oil futures or wheat futures or whatever, you are likely doing so specifically because you have inside information about your business needs

Insider trading, in the U.S., is not legally about fairness but about theft. A firm hedging its own positions is using its information for its own purposes. A federal employee trading on what they heard is abusing the trust placed in them by the American people.

Note that the 2nd circuit tossed an insider trading case on government information on the basis that it doesn't count as "property".

See United States v. Blaszczak.

It may be abuse of trust but that's not automatically a crime.