US economics editor Simon Rabinovitch said the financial blast of “Liberation Day” would not have happened in President Donald Trump’s first administration.
“This time around, he clearly is surrounded by people who, in part, agree with him, people like (presidential counselor) Peter Navarro and others who are enabling him, who are not standing in his way, in the way that happened in Trump 1.0, so this is really the basest, worst instincts of Donald Trump, completely unencumbered by anybody reasonable,” Rabinovitch told MSNBC anchor Katy Tur. “And I think the market reaction that we’re seeing today is simply proof of that.”
At the time of Rabinovitch’s interview, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had hit a low of -3.8%, down 1,600 points. It soon closed at -3.9%, down 1,679. Some critics expressed relief that it closed when it did, and within hours of that same interview, tariff-related layoffs hit five U.S. auto plants supplying car factories in Canada and Mexico. Auto parts maker Stellantis announced it had “paused production,” laying off 900 U.S. hourly employees, many in the Midwest, who were making make vehicle powertrains and stampings.
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The international community was equally hurt, equally fast. Stellantis also announced its assembly plant in Ontario, employing 4,500 Canadians, would be closed for two weeks starting Monday.
Even as stocks tumbled on Thursday, with $2 trillion effectively wiped from Wall Street, Trump assured America was “going well,” and compared the current pain to the inconvenience of medical surgery.
“It was an operation, like when a patient gets operated on and it’s a big thing,” Trump told reporters. “I said this would be exactly the way it is … We’ve never seen anything like it. The markets are going to boom. The stock is going to boom. The country is going to boom.”
He also predicted, seemingly without sarcasm, that the economic situation is “going to be unbelievable.”
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The president had instituted tariffs in his first administration as well, but Rabinovitch said the world had benefited from smarter people in Trump’s circle in his first term.
“In his first term, (tariffs) went from roughly 2% to about three or 3.5% over the course of two years. It was driven by a process run by (former United States Trade Representative) Robert Lighthizer,” Rabinovitch said. “Companies had a couple of years to anticipate it. This time around, in the space of two months, we’ve gone from an effective tariff rate of 3% to about 25%. There’s no process, no feedback, no, possibility of exemption—according to Donald Trump himself. This is utter chaos, utter madness. he’s raised the tariff level beyond what it was during the Great Depression and putting America on the road to economic ruin.”
Watch Rabinovitch’s comments below, or by clicking this link.
– YouTubeyoutu.be
