'Dire news': Dow craters, S&P heads for worst drop in two years amid tariffs
By: MSNBC
Again, what is it going to take for Trump supporters to stop defending this loose-cannon buffoon and start criticizing his irresponsible and brain-dead stupid actions? This idiot continues to do not but damage to our nation, financially and diplomatically, and it is not going to stop as long as loyal supporters keep (irrationally) giving him the thumbs up.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Transcript:
A LOOK AT THE MARKETS just minutes after the opening bell this morning as Wall Street reacts to President Trump's new tariffs. You can see the giant red arrow pointing down.
Joining us now: NBC News Senior Business Correspondent Christine Romans and NBC News Senior Business Analyst—and host, of course, of The 11th Hour—Stephanie Ruhle. Lauren Leader back with us as well.
STEPH, let's just get your blink reaction here to the markets. S&P 500 down 3%. My phone full of push alerts with dire news in terms of reactions to President Trump’s new tariffs.
STEPHANIE RUHLE: And I’ll tell you my phone—
In the last 24 hours, I've been speaking to former Trump administration officials from his first term, CEOs of consumer products companies, Wall Street investors, and economists. And people are sort of blown away on the negative, because what's really lost here, Jonathan, is trust.
We have the biggest, strongest economy. Even the math that they're using in this idea—that having a trade deficit means all these other countries are ripping us off—that's not the case. There have been some bad trade deals over the years, without a doubt, but... but but us having a trade deficit with other countries? No. We're the biggest, best economy. We buy more stuff.
But when I say a loss of trust, just think about this: When you talk about trading, these are long-term partnerships and investments. We told all these manufacturers for years—stop doing business in China, they're our adversary. Go to Vietnam. Now look what we're doing to Vietnam.
In Trump’s first administration, it was Trump and Jared Kushner that renegotiated NAFTA to create the USMCA—a better NAFTA. Now they're tearing it up. We're losing trust with our global partners, and that's a huge problem.
And the last thing I would say is this argument that we keep hearing from the White House: short-term pain for long-term gain—and all these jobs that are going to be roaring back. Where? I have not seen one single CEO saying, "I'm going to build a manufacturing plant here." Howard Lutnick has said the robots are going to start manufacturing the things. When and where? Because for a company to now say, "We're going to start manufacturing in the United States"—it takes 3 to 5 years to build that plant. Three to five years from now, Donald Trump is not going to be in office. Who knows if he’ll retract on these tariffs?
And in order for you to make any sort of investment—a long-term investment—you have to trust the information. You have to trust your counterpart.
And my last point I would make is: Donald Trump is not trusted in a business sense. And I take you back to his history. What is he great at? He's great at branding. He's great at marketing. He’s a phenomenal politician. What he's not great at is business.
As a business person, we all know this: He went bankrupt six times. The one business he tried to operate was a casino that he drove into the ground. And the reason he didn’t do business with big U.S. banks is because they were unwilling to do business with him. I know this because I worked at Deutsche Bank—the bank that actually did do business with him.
And what he's known for is not standing up to contracts, not standing up to deals that he agrees to. And now he's doing that on American soil with American trading policies. And this could put our country in grave risk when it comes to being the superpower that we are.
And if you don't believe me, listen to what Rand Paul has to say, right? An elected official who knows what this will do politically and economically. And it's hugely dangerous.
HOST: So Christine, in Trump's first term, the stock market acted as something of a tripwire—that when it would fall below a certain level, he'd kind of back off things, change his rhetoric, whatever it might be, because he puts so much emphasis—some would say too much emphasis—on how the stock market is doing to sort of gauge the health of the economy. But it does not seem to be the case this time around.
CHRISTINE ROMANS: He used the stock market as his own personal poll or a letter grade in school. And he really wore it as a badge. Even yesterday, at the Rose Garden, he was talking about how great the stock market was under his first administration.
We call that a stock market put—a Trump put—that maybe if things, you know... to use an options term... that maybe if things go really sour, he would change his behavior. This time, I don’t think that's the case anymore.
You’ve heard the White House officials talking about the 10-year note yield. That is the thing they're talking about. It’s declining. That's lowering interest rates for consumers and businesses. That's a good thing—well, it's declining because there’s fear about his economic agenda and what it’s going to do to the economy. So it’s falling for a bad reason, not a good reason. But that’s the number that they're starting to use now.
So I don’t think that they're looking at the stock market—at least so far. A 1,200-point... you know, near the lows of the day, a 1,200-point decline—something that he would have said, you know, if it were the Biden administration, he would have said this is impeachable, you know, having a stock market fall like this. But they’re not—this is not one of their metrics anymore.
HOST: And to the haphazard nature of these tariffs—some of these are on a number of countries that include several uninhabited islands. The Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which are located in subantarctic—the subantarctic Indian Ocean—made Trump’s list.
While teeming with seals, penguins, and other birds, these islands have no permanent human population. A White House official tells Axios that the islands were included because they are Australian territory, located 2,000 miles from the Australian mainland. It takes two weeks to sail to the island.
So, Laura—no exceptions at all. Not even for penguins. We’ve really showed them.
But this goes to—it’s seemingly illustrative of, you know... I was told up until yesterday morning they were still negotiating and figuring out what kind of tariffs to place on what sort of country. The formula is all over the place. People have decoded how they’ve figured this out. But one thing is clear—it’s that we’re all—even the penguins—are going to feel it.
HOST: By the way, Ian Bremmer with the tweet of the morning—with a picture of a mass gathering of penguins, and the saying that it is 10% of the island protesting the Trump tariffs.
I mean, it’s also incredibly not funny. And actually, Christine, it’s hard to get a sense—because we're talking about the markets—and there are really ultimately very few Americans... You know, it’s a small portion of Americans that are...
CHRISTINE: 62% now. It’s 62% now, because of 401(k)s, so it’s a larger percentage.
HOST: But what about prices? When do we think we're going to start—because there's presumably a lag between when tariffs, if they do in fact take effect, and when it really hits people's pocketbooks and they start to see it at the checkout. How long do you think that's going to be?
CHRISTINE: A little more than half—62% of Americans, if you believe that number—own stocks. Everybody has to buy stuff. Everybody has to buy stuff. People need to get a car to go to work. People need to buy groceries.
I mean, it could be a matter of weeks. We've seen the auto sector starting to say—you’re going to see a little sticker on the window of the car in the dealership that says there's that import tax right on there, so you can tell if you're buying a car that's got the extra tax.
But when I look at the stocks today of Nike and Best Buy and all of these big companies that have very integrated global supply chains—they’re down hard. And they’re big employers, including Walmart and others. That means they’re going to have to grapple with significantly higher costs in their pipelines. And that’s going to be something that some, if not all—but at least some of it—will be passed on to consumers.
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Trump has a childishly simplistic understanding of trade deficits, tariffs and their impact on the economy.
... most monthly job losses in the last 2 months since his last term as well. it's the golden age of maga ...
I think it's probably easier to list the things he doesn't have a childishly simplistic understanding of than those he does, it would take a lot less time.
Trump doesn't have a childishly simplistic understanding of grift, bullying, sexual assault, tax evasion, lying, infidelity or narcissism. He is the poster child for all those topics. On pretty much everything else, he's like a giant petulant baby with a wooden mallet at the NT Stock exchange that just shit its diaper and is just lashing out in blind rage because no one is rubbing his tum tum and wiping his bottom.
I think that this will actually reduce some of our trade deficits. This won't be because we are manufacturing more stuff here though. It will be because Americans have to get by with less.
Gee, I don't get to watch much MSNBC. So, they had NBC News Senior Business Correspondent Christine Romans and Stephanie Ruhle. It might have helped to have somebody with a different view. I wish someone would have entertained the thought of what these huge deficits are doing to the country.
From Market Watch only hours ago:
"The deficit has increased 86% year over year, with imports increasing 21.4% and exports adding just 4.6%.
The details: Imports have surged since November. Imports of goods and services were about unchanged at $401.1 billion in February, up from $351.8 billion four months ago.
Big picture: The wider trade gap in the last two months is going to take a huge bite out of first-quarter GDP. Imports are subtracted from economic growth.
Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, estimated that the deficit will reduce GDP growth by 1.8 percentage points."
U.S. trade deficit will pummel growth in first quarter, raising recession risk. Tariffs won’t help. - MarketWatch
Is Trump being simplistic or has he been a great change agent?
Time will tell and he will either be a Saviour for the US economy, again or he will return the country to the status quo of the past 50 years. I think we should see how it plays out before we jump the gun. As somebody famous once said "wait for the facts to come in."
Mao was a "great change agent". So was Stalin, so was Hitler, so was Pol Pot. Lot's of things changed under their rule. However, not all change is good change.
Sometimes, it's being too mentally simplistic and not understanding what you're doing that leads to massive change. Wealthy Romans not understanding the dangers of lead poisoning on the mind coated their cups and plates with the stuff indirectly leading to what some would argue were global changes.
And while Trump acts like he has been suffering from lead poisoning for years, that's not the point. It's that having a "childishly simplistic understanding" of real-world policies that effect the livelihoods of millions of Americans and being in a position to make decisions about how to handle those problems, is dangerous.
He is being absurdly simplistic. He is a change agent for the worse.
Do you actually think that across the board tariffs will do anything other then raise prices and trigger reciprocal tariffs (trade wars)? Are you aware that Trump is totally abusing the use of tariffs? Tariffs are good when they are targeted and designed to accomplish a specific result such as dissuade American consumers from purchasing imported steel to shore up domestic steel producers. Across the board tariffs are utterly stupid. And this is worsened as Trump includes more trade partners.
Plenty of experts have weighed in on tariffs. It takes no effort to learn exactly how Trump is fucking things up.
This is the bullshit response that Trump supporters have been giving since he was inaugurated. You (meaning Trump supporters ... which includes you) cannot defend his actions, you probably know they are wrong, yet apparently you believe Trump must be defended no matter what. Open your eyes and look at the damage Trump is doing to the US economy, the stock market, foreign relationships, government operations, etc. Stop blindly kicking the can down the road; Trump is an idiot and will not stop until people like you stop supporting him.
You are granting this buffoon an irrational benefit of the doubt even when you can see the damage that is ensuing right now and should be able to see how it is going to get worse. You are giving genius credit to a clown whose great skills are those of a con artist.
Two trillion dollars of American wealth was erased by Trump today...
What blows my mind is that people continue to support this insanity. What do GoP members think this will do to their reelection bids? Why are GoP members in congress not acting as the responsible check on an obviously out of control, irresponsible PotUS?
What a mess.
they have to, because they're so emotionally invested at this point. the only people that can stand to be around them or take them seriously, are maga. without a mass movement of republican leaders willing to step forward and counter balance trump's increasing insanity regarding most of his decisions, his cult is afraid to stray too far, if at all, for fear of being ostracized and abandoned by the other morons that would rather sacrifice everything and everyone, than admitting to making a mistake, let alone any acceptance of responsibility or accountability.
There is a limit to even what cult members will tolerate. I would expect congressional republicans to understand that this is NOT doing them any good in the areas they cherish most — reelection.
trump has 20 months left to raise the phoenix from the ashes before the midterms, but given the variables of bottomless ignorance, suicidal stubborness, and cultist admiration, trumpski could theoretically make a campaign promise he has no intention of ever keeping and still salvage the majority of his base. ... probably including even those within the cult that have suffered from his current economic malfeasance.
Jim Jones
I was thinking something less than the extreme .. maybe something like the Church of Scientology.
Let's combine today's news of tariffs with the fact the Senate is actually trying to end around the rules to add $4.5T to the deficit and another $1.5T in new future tax cuts. If successful we won't have to wait too much longer to slide into a recession.
It's like watching Elmer Fudd shoot at Bugs, but instead blow his own face off.
Wascawy wabbit!
I think members of Congress need to stand up to trmp and say no. Because if they don't, they won't have to worry about trmp primarying them. Their constituents will be looking for somebody new anyway
Politicians don't typically have spines.
You're assuming there will be elections.
silly me
If you think extending, and not ending, the Trump tax cuts will cause a recession.....
If you think extending tax cut, increased tariffs and cutting services helps anyone but the uber rich....
So that's moving the goal posts. But sure, raise taxes on the working poor in the name of hurting the rich. That's basically progressivism in a nutshell.
To my actual point, if you don't extend the tax cuts, taxes go up on every single taxpayer and small business which will, of course, increase prices for everyone as well.
It's amazing to see people understand that raising tariffs causes prices to go up and can lead to a recession, and then turn around and not think raising taxes on business will accomplish the same thing. Understand that tariffs are taxes and raising taxes will have the same impact, except removing the trump tax cuts punishes the consumer on both ends. I guess Trump needs to start calling for tax increases on small businesses for progressives to understand that.
I made $20 per paycheck when the original tax cuts went through. The working poor were never the intended recipients of these tax cuts.
This just came in from the NYT:
The smallest drop is China. Canada also maintains pretty well. Japan - entirely dependent on international trade, does worst... with the US almost as bad.