The numbers: Dow Jones: -2.5%; S&P 500: -3.5%; Nasdaq: -4.3%.
When Donald Trump offered some financial advice Wednesday morning, stocks were wavering between gains and losses.
But that was about to change.
“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT,” he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social at 9:37 a.m.
Less than four hours later, Trump announced a 90-day pause on nearly all his tariffs. Stocks soared on the news, closing up 9.5% by the end of trading. The market, measured by the S&P 500, gained back about $4 trillion, or 70%, of the value it had lost over the previous four trading days.
It was a prescient call by the president. Maybe too prescient.
“He’s loving this, this control over markets, but he better be careful,” said Trump critic and former White House ethics lawyer, Richard Painter, noting that securities law prohibits trading on insider information or helping others do so. “The people who bought when they saw that post made a lot of money.”
Senators speak out
Democratic senators are calling for an investigation.
“Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?” said Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff in a post on the platform BlueSky. Added Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut on X, “An insider trading scandal is brewing.”
A key question is: Was Trump already contemplating the tariff pause when he made that post?
“Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it,” said Trump himself when asked yesterday directly about when he arrived at his decision, but then added to the confusion, stating, “Fairly early this morning.”
Asked for clarification on the timing in an email to the White House later, a spokesperson didn’t answer directly but defended Trump’s post as part of his job.
“It is the responsibility of the President of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering,” wrote White House spokesman Kush Desai.
Trump Media shares
Another curiosity of the posting was Trump’s sign-off with his initials.
DJT is also the stock symbol for Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of the president’s social media platform Truth Social.
It’s not clear if Trump was saying buy stocks in general, or Trump Media in particular. The White House was asked, but didn’t address that either. Trump includes “DJT” on his posts intermittently, typically to emphasize that he has personally written the message.
The ambiguity about what Trump meant didn’t stop people from pouring money into that stock.
Trump Media closed up 22.67%, soaring twice as much as the broader market, a stunning performance by a company that lost $400 million last year and is seemingly unaffected by whether tariffs would be imposed or paused.
Trump’s 53% ownership stake in the company, now in a trust controlled by his oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., rose by $415 million on the day.
Trump Media was bested, albeit by only two-hundredths of a percentage point, by another Trump administration stock pick — Elon Musk’s Tesla.
Last month, Trump held an extraordinary news conference outside the White House praising the company and its cars. That was followed by a Fox TV appearance by his commerce secretary urging viewers to buy the stock.
Tesla’s surge Wednesday added $20 billion to Musk’s fortunes.
Kathleen Clark, a government ethics law expert at Washington University School of Law, says Trump’s post in other administrations would have been investigated, but is not likely to trigger any reaction, save for maybe more Truth Social viewers.
“He’s sending the message that he can effectively and with impunity manipulate the market,” she said, “As in: Watch this space for future stock tips.”
As President Donald Trump tries to turn his global trade war into a one-on-one showdown with China, he is finding that he has alienated some key U.S. partners who could boost America’s position in a fight between the world’s largest and second-largest economies.
For more than a decade, American leaders, including Trump, have tried to reorient U.S. economic policy, security strategy, and alliances to confront China’s rise. Yet nearly three months into his second term, Trump’s “America First” tariffs and budget cutbacks may have provided Beijing its clearest opening yet to escape years of U.S. pressure.
This week, Trump doubled down on China, raising duties on its imports to a staggering 145%, even as he eased off his planned tariffs on much of the world’s goods for 90 days in the face of a stock market meltdown. But the whipsaw of economic threats on American allies and partners has already taken a toll, beyond just upending global trade.
As Trump preaches protectionism, China is sending a starkly different message: Its markets will only open wider, and the world can count on China for much-desired stability.
“The world must embrace fairness and reject hegemonism,” the Chinese government has declared, in a clear reference to the U.S. It’s an apparent call for unity from countries facing high tariffs from the U.S., as its leaders have held talks with their counterparts from the European Union, South Korea, Japan and more.
“As the second largest economy and second largest market for consumer goods, China is committed to opening even wider to the world, no matter how the international situation changes,” the Chinese government said in a position statement on U.S. tariffs.
US moves cause multiple counter reactions
The blow the Trump administration has dealt to the rest of the world with his tariff agenda has come after he pulled the U.S. from international groups such as the World Health Organization, dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development and gutted the U.S. Agency for Global Media, raising worries that the U.S. is losing friends and ceding influences to China on several fronts.
“We should be forging stronger coalitions to compete with China. But instead, the Trump Administration is keen on turning our back on the very partnerships that have helped keep the U.S. strong and secure for generations,” Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said shortly after Trump unveiled his tariff plan last week.
But the game also is shifting for Beijing, as evidenced by Trump’s announcing a tariff pause for all nations but China.
“You tried to say that the rest of the world would be moved closer to China, when, in fact, we’ve seen the opposite effect. The entire world is calling the United States of America, not China, because they need our markets,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said after Trump’s announcement.
Yet Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the administration is not interested in coalition-building, which was a hallmark of the Biden administration’s efforts to counter China and extend the U.S agenda abroad.
“The answer is, the president is focused on America,” Lutnick told reporters. “He’s going to try to negotiate the best deals for America with each of these great countries that are calling us, that want to talk. So he’s not trying to build a coalition or any kind of thing like that.”
An opportunity for Beijing?
Trump’s drastic tariff plans have prompted countries to explore new approaches. Beijing has been presented with an opportunity but is not taking advantage of it, said Josh Lipsky, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center,
“With China hitting back the U.S. so hard by their own retaliatory tariffs, and both countries escalating into a trade war between the world’s two largest economies, I think they’re both focused on each other and not focused on the other countries around the world,” he said, adding China’s manufacturing overcapacity would be a challenge to any other market.
Gabriel Wildau, a managing director at the consultancy Teneo, observed in a note that Trump’s tariff suspension “appears to be at least partially an effort to isolate China” and that China now “faces diminished prospects of assembling a broad international coalition to resist US tariffs by forging new trade blocs that exclude the U.S.”
On Wednesday, House Democrats said Trump tariffs — which have since been paused — hurt ties with critical Pacific allies and partners, including Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Vietnam, by pushing them away from the United States but closer to China.
“We have launched a trade war against every single one of our partners in the Asia region,” said the panel’s ranking democrat, Rep. Adam Smith, of Washington. And from Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn.: “This is driving our allies in the wrong direction.”
Not quite, said Mississippi Rep. Trent Kelly, who defended the tariffs. “Being taken advantage of is not how we become strong leaders,” the Republican said.
Shortly after Trump announced the “reciprocal” tariffs on April 2, Krishnamoorthi called the move “a complete capitulation of American global leadership that will only benefit the Chinese Communist Party.”
China navigates the new landscape
As the tariff war with the U.S. intensified, Chinese Premier Li Qiang had a phone conversation with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. China, said Li, was “ready to work with the European side to promote the sound and steady development of China-EU relations.” Li said the two are each other’s “most important trading partners”, their economies are ”highly complementary,” and their interests are “closely intertwined.”
Von der Leyen stressed the responsibility of Europe and China to support a strong reformed trading system “in response to the widespread disruption caused by the U.S. tariffs”. But she also told Li that European businesses need better access to the Chinese market.
Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, in a video call Thursday, told the trade chief of Malaysia that China was ready to work with trading partners and to resolve respective concerns “in a joint effort to safeguard the multilateral trading system.” Malaysia holds the rotating chair of ASEAN, the regional grouping of 10 Southeast Asian nations.
That same day, the economic ministers of ASEAN countries, in a joint statement, expressed concerns over the unilateral tariffs. “This has caused uncertainty and will bring significant challenges to businesses, especially micro, small, and medium enterprises as well as to global trade dynamics,” the statement said.
In late March, Wang also met his counterparts from Japan and South Korea before they issued a statement recognizing the need for cooperation to address “emerging challenges” and pledging to enhance cooperation on supply chains.
But in a sign of the group’s limitations, the meeting produced no agreement on what to do about U.S. tariffs.
In the aftermath of this week’s tariff whiplash, President Donald Trump is deciding exactly what he wants out of trade talks with as many as 75 nations in the coming weeks.
Trump is also figuring out next steps with China. He upped his tariffs on Chinese goods to 145% after China placed retaliatory taxes of 84% on imports from the U.S. While his 90-day pause on other tariffs caused the stock market to rally on Wednesday, countries still face a baseline 10% import tax instead of the higher rates announced on April 2.
“There will be a transition cost and transition problems,” Trump said at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. “But in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.”
Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” on Thursday that the administration already has “offers on the table from more than 15 countries.”
Hassett said the next step will be determining exactly what Trump wants out of the negotiations.
“We have a meeting today with all the top principals where we’re going to present to the president a list of what we think his priorities might look like,” Hassett said. “And I’m sure he’s going to, you know, have his own ideas about where to move things.”
Here’s a look at where Trump’s tariffs showdown stands:
The financial markets can tame Trump
With $28.9 trillion in publicly held debt, the U.S. government can still be beholden to the investors who lend it money. Trump might be willing to run roughshod over political rivals, judges he dislikes an,d a host of political norms, but the bond market showed that it can temper his plans.
Going into Wednesday, the interest rate on a 10-year U.S. Treasury note was increasing and approaching 4.5%. That meant the U.S. government was having a tough time finding possible buyers for its debt, as market participants were wondering if Trump’s tariffs had caused foreign buyers to sour on the U.S. government. Higher interest rates for the government could trigger even higher mortgage rates and auto loans for consumers, among other problems.
Trump on Wednesday said investors were getting “yippy,” but after his tariff pause he described the bond market as “beautiful.”
The tariff drama is far from done
The S&P 500 stock index jumped 9.5% after the pause was announced. But reality crept back in Thursday and the S&P 500 slumped nearly 3.5% as interest rates on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes rose. Sure, Trump was no longer going to put a 20% tariff on goods from the European Union, a 24% tariff on Japan, ora 25% tariff on South Korea. But those nations still have imports taxed at an elevated 10%, Trump’s new baseline as trade talks begin. And tariffs went up against China, locking the world’s two largest economies in a trade war.
Plus, the trade war has expanded with China, and 25% tariffs still apply to imported autos, steel, and aluminum. Imports from Canada and Mexico, the two largest U.S. trading partners, still face tariffs of as much as 25%. And Trump still plans tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs, lumber, copper,r and computer chips.
“While we appreciate the pause, the reciprocal tariff of 10% still represents more than double the tariff on imports of leather footwear from countries like Vietnam and Cambodia,” said Tom Florsheim, CEO of the Weyco Group, a footwear company. “Even at this level, it means a significant cost increase that will impact consumers.”
Because tariffs are taxes paid by importers, the costs generally get passed along to consumers and businesses in the form of higher prices. The Budget Lab at Yale University estimated Thursday that even with the pause, Trump’s current tariff regime would pull down a household’s average disposable income by $4,364.
What Trump really, really wants
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said any trade agreements will be “bespoke” deals, rather than some overarching pact among a group of countries. Trump has laid out a series of grievances and goals regarding tariffs, but Canadian and European counterparts have said the actual asks from administration officials have been vague so far.
Trump has said he wants to eliminate the $1.2 trillion trade deficit, which means he no longer wants the U.S. to import more goods than it exports to other nations. He also wants revenues from tariffs to offset his income tax cut plans. The president has also said he wants the tariffs to bring back factory jobs and raise workers’ wages.
Aides have said Trump wants other nations to scrap regulations and other policies, such as Europe’s value-added taxes, that he deems to be a barrier to U.S. goods, an ask that would require other countries to change their laws. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said the goal is to get other nations to “respect” Trump.
His goals might not necessarily be in line with what other nations want.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted on X that she’s “consistently advocated for a zero-for-zero tariff agreement between the European Union and the United States.”
Lori Wallach, director of the Rethink Trade program at the American Economic Liberties Project, said Trump needs to be more publicly forthright about what he wants out of trade talks and tariffs.
“Absent transparency about what is being demanded, we could end up with the worst of all outcomes — a bunch of bad special interest deals, all of the economic damage caused by tariff uncertainty and no trade rebalancing, U.S. manufacturing capacity or goods jobs,” she said.
A trade war with China could cause mutual pain
The Trump administration views China as violating basic trade norms with how it subsidizes its manufacturers, takes intellectual property from its global competitors, suppresses wages for its workers, and manipulates its currency.
The White House clarified that the 125% tariffs that Trump announced Wednesday against China were actually 145%, once his previous 20% fentanyl tariffs were included.
Census Bureau data show the U.S. ran a $295 billion trade deficit last year with China. Because U.S. consumers and businesses are such a major customer of Chinese manufacturers, Bessent has said thatit gives the U.S. an edge in terms of inflicting pain on that nation’s economy through tariffs. Of course, China has also spent several years preparing for a trade war.
Trump at his Cabinet meeting expressed hope that he could get an agreement with China, though he didn’t offer any specifics on what he was seeking.
“Well, we’ll see what happens with China,” Trump said. “I would love to be able to work a deal.”
Wendong Zhang, an economist at Cornell University, said the Chinese economy might suffer a steeper hit to its gross domestic product than the U.S., but it’s “likely to stick to its guns” due to internal public support and the ability to increase consumption domestically on goods that might no longer be going to the U.S.
Meanwhile, Trump will need to deal with voters who might be frustrated over the higher price of electronics and other goods resulting from the trade wars.
“Many products that the U.S. imports are predominantly from China: smartphones (73%), laptops (78%), video game consoles (87%), toys (77%), and also antibiotics for U.S. livestock production,” Zhang said in an email. “Resourcing from other countries will take time and result in much higher costs.”
As tariffs rise, so do the hidden costs in the pet care and pet food industries — and it’s not just about dog biscuits.
• Imported ingredients like vitamins and fish meal? Pricier.
• Pet toys, grooming tools, and vet supplies? Harder to source and more expensive.
• Small businesses? Squeezed between rising costs and price-sensitive customers.
What happens next?
• Pet owners pay more.
• Brands cut R&D and innovation.
• Vets see more preventable issues as pet health products become less accessible.
For pet lovers and industry pros, this is more than economics — it’s about well-being and access.
Let’s keep our eyes on how policy shifts can affect even the most loyal members of our households.
In public comments and interviews, a number of officials have signaled they are ruling out interest-rate cuts that would act as an insurance policy against any tariff-induced economic slowdown.
Why? Inflation is still above target and likely to get higher because of the levies. Officials don't want to risk letting price gains - and expectations for future inflation - get out of control.
That likely means a willingness to hold rates steady even as the unemployment rate rises. It's a shift away from the luxury officials had when inflation was lower, of being able to cut rates when it appeared the economy was weakening.
Consumer prices declined in March.
Most of the drop was due to plunging gasoline prices.The consumer price index edged down 0.1% in March, its first drop since a marginal decline in June 2024. Dropping gas prices accounted for the lion's share of the inflation decline, pulling down the index by 0.2%. The most important offsetting positive items were housing (no surprise), food & beverages, and household fuels and utilities.
With the March drop, year-over-year CPI inflation eased to 2.4%, down from 2.8% in February.
Core inflation, which excludes food and energy—and is therefore often viewed as a better indicator of underlying inflationary pressure—rose less than 0.1% in March. This was the smallest core inflation gain since January 2021.
That's where the good news is in the March report. There was a slowing in inflation for both shelter and non-energy services other than shelter. These have been stubbornly persistent pieces of the inflation pie until very recently. (For the latter, large motor vehicle insurance hikes have been a particular problem.) The trailing three-month changes in these inflation components have receded recently, although they remain well above the Fed's long-run 2% inflation target.
For the Fed, then, this report will be seen as encouraging, especially considering the tariff impact that will soon begin to filter through. But as always for the CPI report, I must note that the Fed pays much more attention to the Personal Consumption Expenditure measure. We won't get March data for that until the end of this month. And one component that features much more heavily in the PCE measure is health care, which rose strongly in the CPI report.
The Fed faces a challenging environment. Inflation is not yet *clearly* on a resumed downward path, and the economy looks much more vulnerable to a downturn than it did just a few months ago. Sustained signs of easing inflation would make a future Fed decision to lower rates much easier.
