From thenationaldesk.com
Wall Street just had its worst day since the world shut down due to a pandemic in 2020. This time, the blow to the stock market was triggered by President Donald Trump announcing an aggressive tariff plan that will impact just about every country on earth.
By Thursday’s closing bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.98%, the S&P 500 lost 4.84% and the tech-heavy NASDAQ plummeted 5.97%.
“Our country’s stock market is going Ka-boom,” TV personality Jim Cramer posted on social media.
The trading session was ugly from start to finish. Shortly after the opening bell rand and it was clear what traders were in for, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump.”
The theme of asking the public to put trust in the president persisted throughout the day as signs of a rebound were nowhere to be found.
“Let Donald Trump run the global economy,” said Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. “He knows what he’s doing. He’s been talking about it for 35 years. You got to trust Donald Trump in the White House. That’s why (voters) put him there. Let him fix it. OK? It’s broken. Let him fix it.”
Lutnick said he doesn’t think there’s any chance Trump will change his mind about the tariffs.
The administration has justified these tariffs by arguing trading partners have “ripped off” the U.S. for decades with unfair trade practices. The president vowed tariffs will incentivize companies to move manufacturing to the U.S. and create American jobs.
His top advisers warned trading partners against retaliating with tariffs of their own.
“We are the sumo wrestler of this world. We are the biggest economy, the biggest customer. You can’t fight back against your customer,” Lutnick said.
Not only are countries like China, Canada and members of the European Union preparing retaliatory measures, but they’re also looking for alternative sources of trade that may prove more reliable than the U.S. under a Trump administration.
“The cost of doing business with the United States will drastically increase and what is more, there seems to be no order in the disorder, no clear path through the complexity and chaos that is being created as all U.S. trading partners are hit,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Trump is standing by his plan.
“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate, always have. I’ve used them very well in the first administration as you saw, but now we’re taking it to a whole new level because it’s a worldwide situation and it’s very exciting to see and what it’s done is driven a lot of great companies to our country and you’re gonna see construction starting all over,” Trump said.
Trump said it would take between a year and a half and two years for manufacturing in the U.S. to be at the level he wants.
The list of economists who predict Americans will experience rising inflation and a recession before a manufacturing boom is growing.
“There is no coherent logic to these policies,” said former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. “I don’t really understand how any self-respecting analyst, person who holds themself out as an economic expert can be comfortable remaining in this administration.”