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President Trump stood by his “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariff package Friday after China hit back with a 34% tariff on US goods, promising investors that his “policies will never change.”
In a string of all-caps Truth Social posts, the president argued his duties will withstand the test of the markets, which plunged yet again in the first hour of Friday trading.
“CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED – THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!” he wrote.
In an earlier post, the president told “THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE.
“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 1,400 points in the first 70 minutes of trading Friday, as investors anticipated more retaliatory tariffs from foreign countries in response to Trump’s Wednesday announcement.
The tariffs, which Trump and his economic team had been working on for months, established a 10% minimum base duty on foreign countries, and hit so-called “worst offender” countries at higher rates.
Trump hit China with a 34% additional tariff himself in that Wednesday announcement, on top of a previous tariff of 20%.
The president indicated Thursday he would be willing to negotiate with countries to bring the tariff rates down — but only if they “are giving us something that is good.”
“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have. I’ve used them very well in the first administration,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
The president predicted Thursday that markets will boom following his tariff package implementation, with the 10% tariff going into effect on Saturday and any higher tariff rates kicking in on Wednesday.
“I think it’s going very well. It was an operation, like what a patient gets operated on, and it’s a big thing,” Trump told reporters when leaving the White House.
“I said this would exactly be the way it is. We have $6 or $7 trillion coming in to our country, and we’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
On Friday, the White House took a victory lap over a stronger-than-expected March jobs report.
“GREAT JOB NUMBERS, FAR BETTER THAN EXPECTED. IT’S ALREADY WORKING. HANG TOUGH, WE CAN’T LOSE!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
In Brussels, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a slightly different message — acknowledging that “markets are crashing,” but the underlying US economy was strong.
“I don’t think it’s fair to say economies are crashing,” he told reporters. “Markets are crashing because markets are based on the stock value of companies who today are embedded in modes of production that are bad for the United States. We have to reset the global order of trade.”
