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Bold letters highlight the non-sense Trump is sprouting.“This is why Warren Buffett just said Trump is making the best economic moves he’s seen in over 50 years,” the video says.
Wall Street suffered its worst week since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis five years ago as investors worldwide balked at Donald Trump’s risky bid to overhaul the global economy with sweeping US tariffs. The US president doubled down on his plan on Friday, insisting he would not back down even as the chairman of the Federal Reserve warned it would likely raise prices and slow down economic growth.
A stock-market rout continued apace, with the benchmark S&P 500 falling 322 points, or 6%, and the Dow Jones industrial average retreating 2,231.07 points, or 5.2%, in New York. The Dow’s two-day slump has wiped out $6.4tn in value, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, sank 5.8%, and entered bear market territory, having fallen more than 20% since peaking in December.
Over the week, the S&P 500 fell 9.1%, its worst five-day trading stretch since March 2020.
Trump sought to reverse the slide, but an insistence that his policies “will never change” in an all-caps social media post appeared to only reinforce apprehension over his strategy: “ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL!” he wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.
China outlined plans to retaliate, setting the stage for an all-out trade war between the world’s two largest economies, as other governments worldwide pulled together their response. The sweeping package of tariffs unveiled by Donald Trump on Wednesday includes an exemption for the energy sector, which is a clear sign of the president’s fealty to his big oil donors over the American people, advocates say.
The US market declines capped another dismal day for global indices. The FTSE 100 fell 5% in London. The CAC 40 declined 4.3% in Paris. The Nikkei 225 dropped 2.8% in Tokyo.
“It is now becoming clear that the tariff increases will be significantly larger than expected,” the Fed chair Jerome Powell said. “The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”
A video posted on X that Trump reposted on Truth Social said that Trump is crashing the stock market on purpose, supposedly to get the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.
“This is why Warren Buffett just said Trump is making the best economic moves he’s seen in over 50 years,” the video says.
In a statement to CNBC, Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s company, said: “There are reports currently circulating on social media (including TikTok, Facebook and TikTok) regarding comments allegedly made by Warren E Buffett. All such reports are false”.
We’re likely going to see a lot of attempts from Trump and his administration to reframe the situation on Wall Street in the coming days. Keep in mind that in early March, when Trump was asked whether he could confirm that the country wasn’t heading into a recession because of his tariff policies, Trump said: “I hate to predict things like that”.
Apple is nearly 6% down today, after falling 9% on Thursday – what amounted to over $300bn of its market value, according to the Financial Times. It was the company’s worst day since March 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The White House went out of its way to confirm that there aren’t any exceptions made for Apple in Trump’s plan.
Projections made by Rosenblatt Securities suggest that the tariffs of China, of which there will be a total of 54% after Trump’s new reciprocal tariffs against the country, could increase the cost of the cheapest iPhone 16 model by 43% – from $799 now to $1,142, depending on how much of the tariff Apple chooses to push onto customers.
The tariffs came despite moves from Apple CEO Tim Cook to try to cozy up to Trump. Cook congratulated Trump on his win in November and was in attendance at Trump inauguration. In February, Apple announced that it would invest over $500bn in US jobs over the next five years, what was largely seen as a play to get Trump to hold back on tariffs.
BEIJING - China has hit back at new U.S. tariffs with sweeping levies of its own on American products, sharply escalating the trade war between the world's two biggest economies. China's finance ministry said on Friday a 34% tariff will be imposed on all U.S. imports from April 10, mirroring President Trump's levy on Chinese goods that was announced as part of his global tariff blitz on Wednesday.
The research firm Capital Economics said the Chinese retaliation did not bode well for prospects of finding a resolution: "This is an aggressive, escalatory response that makes a near-term deal to end the trade war between the two superpowers highly unlikely," its analysts wrote in a note.
But the new Chinese tariffs on U.S. goods do not bring China's across-the-board levies to the same level as those of the U.S. on Chinese goods. Prior to Wednesday, Trump had already imposed tariffs of 20% on Chinese products, and his latest move took the overall rate to 54%. China had responded to those earlier tariffs with targeted tariffs of its own and other measures.
The latest Chinese countermeasures also included restrictions on U.S. companies and rare earth exports. China's commerce ministry said on Friday it is adding 16 U.S. entities to an export control list, banning them from acquiring Chinese products designated as dual-use, for civilian and military purposes.
"These entities have behaved in a manner that may jeopardize China's national security and interests, and no export operator is allowed to violate the above-mentioned provisions," it said in a statement. The commerce ministry put 11 other U.S. companies on a so-called "unreliable entity" list, effectively blacklisting them. It accused the companies of "carrying out so-called military technology cooperation with Taiwan despite China's strong opposition". Beijing considers self-governed Taiwan a part of China.
The commerce ministry also announced that it is imposing export controls on seven types of rare earth minerals. They include samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium. In addition, China's customs administration is suspending some farm product import qualifications for several American companies.
In explaining its retaliatory tariffs, the finance ministry said the imposition of tariffs by the United States is "not in line with international trade rules, seriously undermines China's legitimate rights and interests, and is a typical unilateral bullying practice".
The U.S. action "not only undermines the U.S. self-interest, but also jeopardizes the development of the global economy and the stabilization of production and supply chains," it said.
Wall Street is not Main Street — but this week, investors and consumers alike seem terrified of how President Trump's tariffs could upend the global economy. The pain continued for U.S. stocks on Friday, a day after the stock market suffered its worst day in five years.
Late on Friday morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell over 1,400 points — or 3.4% . That extended its Thursday selloff of nearly 1,700 points, or 4%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500, which tracks the largest U.S. companies, also continued to tumble: Both fell more than 4% on Friday morning.
Trump shocked businesses, investors, and global trading partners on Wednesday, when he announced that his long-promised tariffs would affect almost all U.S. imports. He has imposed the taxes on U.S. allies and foes alike: Most U.S. imports will now face tariffs of at least 10 percent, with higher taxes on goods from the European Union, Japan, China, and dozens of other countries.
The global trade war intensified on Friday. China responded to Trump's taxes with a reciprocal 34% tariff on all U.S. imports; other countries are also likely to retaliate.
Economists warn the new taxes will result in higher prices and slower growth in the United States — while spilling over into other countries and hurting the global economy. Investment bank JPMorgan on Thursday warned that the tariffs are likely to push the U.S. and the world into a recession.
Businesses of all sizes reacted with shock and anger as they processed the sweeping costs that they — and their customers — will now have to pay to continue doing business.
Consumer spending is already slowing down, while consumer confidence has plummeted. And even a reassuring jobs report on Friday morning — with employers adding more jobs than expected last month — couldn't quiet widespread market fears about the outlook for the post-tariffs economy.
Following is additional information from The Guardian:Donald Trump’s new tariffs are “larger than expected” and the economic fallout including higher inflation and slower growth likely will be as well, the Federal Reserve chair said on Friday in remarks that pointed to the potentially difficult set of decisions ahead for the central bank.
In prepared remarks for a business journalists’ conference Powell said: "We face a highly uncertain outlook with elevated risks of both higher unemployment and higher inflation. While tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation, it is also possible that the effects could be more persistent."
Powell added that it was not the Fed’s role to comment on the Trump administration’s policies but rather to react to how they might affect an economy that he and his colleagues regarded just a few weeks ago as being in a “sweet spot” of falling inflation and low unemployment.
As the new policies and their likely economic effects become clearer, we will have a better sense of their implications for the economy and for monetary policy. While uncertainty remains elevated, it is now becoming clear that the tariff increases will be significantly larger than expected. The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.
The last time US tariffs were this high was after president Herbert Hoover signed into law the controversial Smoot-Hawley Tariff bill in 1930, which saw tariffs on many imported goods averaging nearly 40%. Just as now, there was global indignation at what was seen as unreasonable protectionism by the US, with nations such as France threatening firm retaliation if it did not back down.
As politicians sought to negotiate with the US, European businesses took a more direct course of action by boycotting US produce. In the UK, department stores even placed placards in their windows advertising an ‘Empire loaf’, which was made with 85% Canadian flour.
The impact of Hoover’s tariffs were, as predicted by hundreds of economists, highly damaging to the US, with estimates of imported goods, many of which were needed by US industry and commerce, plummeting by nearly half.
On Friday British prime minister Keir Starmer spoke to his Australian and Italian counterparts, Anthony Albanese and Giorgia Meloni, about how they should respond to Trump’s tariffs, saying they agreed an “all-out trade war would be extremely damaging and is in nobody’s interests”. Reuters reports that in separate calls, Starmer said it had been “clear for a long time that like-minded countries must maintain strong relationships and dialogue to ensure our mutual security and maintain economic stability”.
And the predictable response from Tariff Toddler...Powell speaks. Pretty much says, "I ain't your boy!"
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/04/powell-sees-tariffs-raising-inflation-and-says-fed-will-wait-before-further-rate-moves.html
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