President Donald Trump’s National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett on Monday disputed that the president’s tariff agenda would trigger a recession.
When asked by Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo if the United States could expect a recession in 2025, he replied, ‘100 percent not. 100 percent not.’
‘If you look at the jobs numbers, they’re very, very strong,’ he said.
Hassett said that despite the uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs, the conversations he had with business CEOs indicated that they were investing in manufacturing in the United States which would only grow the economy
‘Everything’s through the roof, anecdotally, with the CEOs that we’re talking to and the hard data on jobs have been really, really good,’ he said.
Hassett also indicted that positive trade conversations were taking place with the European Union.
‘We’re making enormous progress. This could be very good for American workers, especially American auto workers, we think,’ he said.
President Trump, he noted, was already considering upcoming deals with more than ten different countries.
‘I think that we’ve got more than 10 deals where there’s very, very good, amazing offers made to the U.S. that USTR Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Howard Lutnick and the rest of our trade team and the President are stewing over whether those deals are good enough,’ he said.
Hassett noted that the president wanted to make sure that foreign countries were firmly committed to investing in manufacturing semiconductors in the Unite States.
‘Right now, there are things that are coming online that we negotiated last time, and then there’s a horse race to see who can get here the fastest,’ he said. ‘And I think that the person, the horse that wins that race is going to have the biggest prize.’