President Donald Trump insisted Friday that “MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” doubling down on his aggressive tariff policies amid plummeting U.S. stock markets.
“TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!”
Trump on Wednesday meted out tariffs on U.S. global trading partners, sending a shock wave through financial markets and drawing the nation into a massive trade war with affected countries pledging retaliatory measures. Already on Friday, China said it would hit U.S. imports with a 34 percent tariff starting April 10. Other major economies, like the European Union, are likely to follow.
The president was quick to chastise Beijing for its retaliatory measures, writing on Truth Social that “CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED – THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!”
Trump has painted his tariffs as a forceful effort to reset American trade relationships that he says have resulted in the U.S. being “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike.” Though tariffs imposed by the U.S. in the distant past have had disastrous results for the American economy, the president has insisted that his widespread import taxes will entice companies to bring manufacturing jobs back to American shores.
The White House dubbed Wednesday, the day the tariffs were imposed, “Liberation Day” and hosted a celebratory Rose Garden event where the president laid out his policies. But Trump’s promises did little to quell concerns on Wall Street, where markets plummeted in the immediate aftermath of the announcement. On Thursday alone, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,700 points, and U.S. stocks overall suffered their worst day since March of 2020, the opening days of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The news was not all bad for the White House on Friday, with Trump quickly claiming credit for a better than expected March jobs report — though those numbers reflect an economy untouched by Trump’s sweeping tariff plan. The U.S. added 228,000 new jobs, exceeding expectations and offering the president an opportunity to assuage concerns about economic chaos. The “great job numbers,” he said, were evidence that his economic policies were “already working.”
“Hang tough, we can’t lose!!!” the president said.
