President Donald Trump told Americans to “hang tough” after his tariff rollout sent markets plunging.
“THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN,” the president wrote on Truth Social Saturday. “HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic.”
On Wednesday—which Trump dubbed “Liberation Day”—the president unveiled new levies of 10 percent on all imports to the United States as well as “reciprocal” tariffs on 180 countries. The move sent stocks tumbling Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffering its worst day since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Investor’s Business Daily.
China fired back on Friday with a 34 percent tariff on all U.S. goods, sending markets into another tailspin.
On Truth Social, Trump reassured Americans that “China has been hit much harder than the USA, not even close” and reiterated that the economic pain was necessary to right decades of trade imbalances.
“They, and many other nations, have treated us unsustainably badly,” Trump said. “We have been the dumb and helpless ‘whipping post,’ but not any longer. We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before.”
He likened his tariffs to a sick person undergoing surgery: “THE OPERATION IS OVER! THE PATIENT LIVED, AND IS HEALING,” as tumbling stocks ravaged Americans’ 401(k)s Thursday.
In a separate post on Truth Social Friday, the president pressured Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell to cut interest rates, telling him to “STOP PLAYING POLITICS!”
Powell expressed reluctance to cut rates on Friday as the Fed continues to grapple with persistent inflation, which he warned could worsen due to the tariffs.
“It is now becoming clear that the tariff increases will be significantly larger than expected,” he said. “The same is likely to be true of the economic effects, which will include higher inflation and slower growth.”
Powell, whom Trump appointed in 2018, said the Fed tries “to stay as far as we can from the political process” because Americans “expect us to tell the truth, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
