President Trump on Thursday insisted that the rollout of his new reciprocal tariffs is “going really well” despite markets taking a plunge and foreign leaders appearing rattled by the prospect of a global recession.
Trump, however, insisted the markets will bounce back and reiterated that the pain would be short term despite the wave of uncertainty muddying future prospects.
“I think it’s going very well,” Trump told reporters while leaving the White House to attend LIV Golf events in Miami. “It was an operation, like when a patient gets operated on, and it’s a big thing. I said this would exactly be the way it is. We have 6 or 7 trillion dollars coming into our country.”
“The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom. And the rest of the world wants to see if there’s any way they can make a deal,” Trump said, not elaborating on whether he would be open to negotiations with trading partners to lower tariffs.
White House officials told reporters before the announcement on Wednesday, “This is not a negotiation, it’s a national emergency.”
The president announced a steep tariff policy on Wednesday, which will impose a 10 percent tariff on all imports and higher reciprocal tariffs on countries the White House says have unfair trade practices, ranging from 20 percent on the European Union and a total of 54 percent on China.
The announcement has greatly disrupted the markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened with a loss of more than 1,200 points, falling 2.8 percent on the day. The S&P 500 index opened with a loss of 3.3 percent, and the Nasdaq composite opened with a loss of 4.4 percent.
Trump, however, maintained his core argument for imposing the duties, claiming the other countries “have taken advantage of us for many, many years.”
