As Wall Street and global markets reacted strongly — and poorly — to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the president and his allies staunchly defended them.
For a third day in a row, U.S. stocks slumped: Futures are down, the S&P 500 is approaching bear market territory and the Nasdaq has already gotten there. Stocks had their worst week since 2020. And global markets are also tanking, including in Hong Kong, Japan and London.
The market activity has put the White House and Trump Administration on defense, and Trump is insistent that the economy will be fine. In a Truth Social post on Monday, he wrote that: “Countries from all over the World are talking to us. Tough but fair parameters are being set. Spoke to the Japanese Prime Minister this morning. He is sending a top team to negotiate! They have treated the U.S. very poorly on Trade. They don’t take our cars, but we take MILLIONS of theirs. Likewise Agriculture, and many other ‘things.’ It all has to change, but especially with CHINA!!!”
In another post Monday morning, Trump wrote: “The United States has a chance to do something that should have been done DECADES AGO. Don’t be Weak! Don’t be Stupid! Don’t be a PANICAN (A new party based on Weak and Stupid people!). Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that, “I don’t want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
The market is sensitive enough to the tariffs issue that a headline suggesting Trump was considering a 90-day tariff pause on all countries except China drew the market sharply up.
But when the comments, attributed to director of the National Economic Council Kevin Hassett, were traced to a likely misinterpretation of an interview on Fox, the market dropped again.
His Cabinet has also come to his defense: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s Meet the Press that Trump had “created maximum leverage for himself, and more than 50 countries have approached the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation.” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS that the tariffs “are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks.”
And top trade advisor Peter Navarro told CNN on Saturday that, “The market will find a bottom. It will be soon, and from there, we’re going to have a bullish boom, and the Dow is going to hit 50,000 during Trump’s term.”
But Wall Street might not be buying it. In a 59-page letter to stockholders, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon suggested the tariffs would “slow down growth” and produce short-term inflation, though whether they cause a recession “remains in question.”
Pershing Square founder, Trump supporter and billionaire Bill Ackman posted on X that, “By placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital.”
And Trump ally Elon Musk also said Saturday he was hoping for a “zero-tariff situation” between Europe and the United States. That comes as the E.U. has geared up to vote on retaliatory tariffs this week.
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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.