Trump calls tariffs 'medicine' as stocks plunge
'Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,' the president said of his imposed 10% tariffs on imported goods
What happened
Markets in Europe and Asia dropped sharply Monday morning, extending last week's mass global selloff in reaction to President Donald Trump's imposition of 10% tariffs on most imported goods and vow to impose steeper "reciprocal" import taxes on specific countries. "I don't want anything to go down," Trump said Sunday, addressing the market plunge en route to Washington from a weekend of golf in Florida. "But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something."
Who said what
Investors had "thought the loss of trillions of dollars in wealth and the likely body blow to the economy would make Trump reconsider his plans," Reuters said. Tens of thousands of "Hands Off" protesters also took to the streets in cities and towns across the U.S. on Saturday to protest Trump's tariffs, his and Elon Musk's dismantling of federal agencies and a host of other policies.
"Hang tough," Trump urged his followers in an all-caps social media post on Saturday. "This is an economic revolution, and we will win." Trump administration officials then "blitzed television networks" Sunday in a "full-court press" to defend Trump's "massive tariffs" as the administration came "under immense pressure to pull back," The Washington Post said. Even a "growing number of conservatives are pushing back against Trump's moves," including Musk.
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What next?
It's not clear if the "real economy" will follow stock markets "off a cliff," but "the risks are tilting in that direction," The Wall Street Journal said. In a note titled "There Will Be Blood," JPMorgan economists raised the odds of a global recession to 60% from 40% and predicted unemployment will rise to 5.3% by next year, calling Trump's tariffs the largest U.S. tax increase since 1968. Trump said world leaders are calling him "dying to make a deal," but "there's no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis" and erase trade deficits.
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