President Donald Trump was unusually mum on Monday as the Stock Market started tanking a day after he refused to rule out a recession, while a key ally predicted ‘a little bit of pain.’
The president was nowhere to be seen as the Dow tumbled nearly 900 points amid renewed fears of a damaging trade war, a pullback in consumer spending and forces dragging down the broader economy.
At its low-point for the day, the Dow was down 1,000 points. It ended up down 890, or 2 percent.
New Chinese tariffs on U.S. exports began kicking in Monday after Trump slapped tariffs on Beijing. There was a 15 percent tariff on U.S. chicken, wheat and corn, plus a 10 percent tax on products including soybeans and beef.
All were designed to spread the effect of the hit to include Trump’s political base – with agriculture taxes hitting MAGA agriculture.
Trump refused to rule out a recession in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ on Fox News.
‘I hate to predict things like that,’ Trump said. ‘Look, we’re going to have disruption, but we’re OK with that.’
He also spoke about the duration of any hit on the U.S.
‘There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big,’ Trump said . ‘We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. … It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.’ Trump said tariffs ‘may go up’ when Bartiromo tried to press him on the ‘uncertainty’ caused by leveling threats and then pausing or lifting them.
With Trump down, Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem, who unveiled a new app to allow illegal migrants to ‘self-deport’ came out to talk to Fox News at the White House Monday afternoon after markets had closed.
But she declined to stop to speak to a group of reporters who gathered to await her, and didn’t answer a shouted question about the tanking markets.
With Trump staying silent, Senate ally Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told Fox Business that ‘President Trump has told people there’s going to be a little bit of pain with this. And there is.’
He described the suffering as necessary to meet Trump’s goals of slashing government spending.
‘We have no chance unless he does tarifs and holds people to what’s going on,’ he told interviewer Larry Kudlow.
Kudlow, a former Trump White House economic advisor during his first term, was more up beat. ‘This could have a much happier ending than people are suggesting,’ he predicted. Then he modified his statement to say it could have a happier beginning.
Tuberville said ‘People looking at the stock market like hey this is how it’s going to continue to be for months and months and months. That’s not going to happen. You know, we were probably overbloated with the stock market here for a while, we went up quite a bit,’ he said.
It was a shocking departure for Trump, who used to repeatedly crow about stock market gains, and even took credit for a jump in stocks during the transition period at the end of the Biden administration.
Although Trump announced a pause on 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Ontario announced Monday it was tacking a 25 percent surcharge on energy exports to the U.S.
On Trump’s schedule for Monday were a roundtable with tech CEOs, planned executive order signings, and a ceremonial swearing in for the director of the Secret Service. Trump flew in from Mar-a-Lago Sunday night.
There were indications the order signings could get bumped until Tuesday.
A White House official, asked about the downturn in the markets, brushed off the temporary movements.
‘Want to emphasize that we’re seeing a strong divergence between animal spirits of the stock market and what we’re actually seeing unfold from businesses and business leaders, and the latter is obviously more meaningful than the former on what’s in store for the economy in the medium to long term,’ the official said.