Trump declines to rule out recession amid tarriffs’ effect on markets

They’ll blame it on Joe Biden anyway

Sounds like “Goods will cost more but jobs will be better” is the tradeoff they’re going for. I’m sure it’s not lost on them that if that were true, it would disproportionately benefit the white suburban blue-collar manufacturing workers they fetishize.

> The recognition of the economic disruption was notable given that Trump swept into office in part because of voter discontent about years of inflation under former president Joe Biden. But that inflation had slowed in Biden’s final year in office, and most economists say that Trump inherited a fairly strong and stable economy.

> Trump pushed Biden on the stock market, inflation and the overall economy — all issues on which he is now telling voters to look the other way.

> Asked by Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo whether he was expecting a recession this year, Trump said: “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of, it takes a little time. It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us.”

> “If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. We have a quarter. We go by quarters, and you can’t go by that. You have to do what’s right,” Trump said about the stock market. “What we’re doing is we’re building a tremendous foundation for the future.”

> He said that businesses always say they want “clarity” about tariffs, but that’s “almost a sound bite.” He added that tariffs “may go up. I don’t think we’ll go down.”

> “Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American Dream. The American Dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility and economic security,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the New York Economic Club on Thursday. “For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this. International economic relations that do not work for the American people must be reexamined.”

> “It’s important for people to realize we run $2 trillion deficits and Donald Trump is going to try to balance the budgets of the United States of America,” Lutnick said. “We’re going to bring manufacturing back, that’s where we’re going. … Will there be distortions? Of course. Foreign goods may get a little more expensive but American goods are going to get cheap.”