Markets slide amid recession fears, Trump tariffs
US stock markets have their worst day this year as Wall Street questions the Trump administration's trade war


What happened
U.S. stock markets had their worst day of 2025 Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 890 points, or 2.1%. The S&P 500 shed 2.7% — 8.6% and more than $4 trillion in market value lower than a month ago — while the Nasdaq tumbled 4%, notching its worst day since 2022.
Who said what
Monday's stock plunge extended a "miserable month for markets" that saw all three major market indexes "wipe out" any gains made since November's election, said CNN. Wall Street is starting to question "how much pain President Donald Trump will let the economy endure through tariffs and other policies in order to get what he wants," The Associated Press said. In an interview broadcast Sunday, Trump declined to rule out a coming recession.
Investors and economists are digesting Trump's apparent "indifference to rising risks" from his "double-barreled blitz" of slashing the federal workforce and threatening "huge tariffs" on America's "largest trading partners," The Wall Street Journal said. After years of policymakers being "singularly focused on achieving a so-called soft landing," Trump's teams are "considering a course correction that, by their own acknowledgment, might tip the economy toward a hard landing."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
In one measure of the fallout, the five tech executives who stood behind Trump during his inauguration have since collectively lost $209 billion in wealth, Bloomberg said, with Tesla's Elon Musk alone losing $145 billion. Tesla's stock plummeted 15.4% yesterday to its lowest level since October. Analysts attributed the losses to declining sales, "protests of Musk's political activity, including his mass firings of U.S. government workers" as head of Trump's DOGE team, and concerns that "politics are distracting the world's richest man from tending to his cash cow," Reuters said.
White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC Monday there were "a lot of reasons to be extremely bullish about the economy," despite "some blips in the data" this quarter. Hassett's comments did not "immediately convince" investors, "increasingly skittish" about Trump's unpredictable tariff decisions, The Washington Post said. The Cboe Volatility Index, or "Wall Street's 'fear gauge,'" surged 19.5% by market close.
What next?
Trump's 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are set to take effect Wednesday, the same day the government releases its monthly inflation report.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.
-
Trump's first 100 days: the reshaping of America
Talking Point The second Trump White House is 'less a new administration', and more a 'vengeful monarchy'
-
Trump moves to gut PBS and NPR in latest salvo against the media
IN THE SPOTLIGHT The president's executive order targeting two of the nation's largest public broadcasters comes as the White House seeks to radically reframe how Americans get their news
-
Trump judge bars deportations under 1798 law
speed read A Trump appointee has ruled that the president's use of a wartime act for deportations is illegal
-
Trump ousts Waltz as NSA, taps him for UN role
speed read President Donald Trump removed Mike Waltz as national security adviser and nominated him as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
-
How could Trump ending a VA mortgage program leave veterans on the streets?
Today's Big Question Vets could face foreclosure as a result of the White House's actions
-
Kamala Harris steps back on center stage
IN THE SPOTLIGHT In her first major speech since Donald Trump took office, the former presidential candidate took solid aim at this administration as speculation grows about her future
-
Trump blames Biden for tariffs-linked contraction
speed read The US economy shrank 0.3% in the first three months of 2025, the Commerce Department reported
-
Trump's crypto 'sea change' upends Washington's finances
In the Spotlight By embracing digital currency, the White House is clearing a path for a new era in dubious self-enrichment