'Tough way to end the week': Fox Business reels as Trump tariffs send Dow into tailspin
Fox Business hosts reeled Friday afternoon as markets nosedived in response to President Donald Trump's newest tariff announcements.
The president, despite repeated criticism over his anti-free-trade policies, piled on the new trade restrictions with tariffs on foreign cars and auto parts, while publicly calling on automakers not to raise car prices — a move that in addition to sinking the markets by hundreds of points, hurt the stock of General Motors and Ford, two American car companies the order is ostensibly supposed to protect.
"Whew, folks, this is a tough way to end the week," one host said, before the network cut to Larry Kudlow, a former adviser to the Trump administration who has enthusiastically endorsed many of their economic policies and recently tried to blame economic losses under Trump on the Biden administration.
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But even Kudlow had a grim outlook as he started his show.
"So, markets crash over 700 points today after a bad inflation report, more tariff confusion, oh, and by the way — Republicans really gonna raise taxes?" he questioned.
Economic experts are warning that as markets contract and trade dries up from Trump's tariffs, the economy is showing signs it could enter into a stagflation period — a rare economic condition in which both inflation accelerates and job growth slows, generally caused by a contraction in supply of resources. Stagflation conditions in the 1970s are often attributed to the series of oil shortages that hit U.S. markets that decade.