Trump says his tariff policies ‘will never change’

The US president has insisted that it is “a great time to get rich”

US President Donald Trump has defended his controversial decision to impose sweeping tariffs on the majority of America’s trading partners. The move announced earlier this week has shocked global markets and sparked a backlash from world leaders. 

“To the many investors coming into the United States and investing massive amounts of money, my policies will never change. This is a great time to get rich, richer than ever before!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

The president remained defiant, even as the US stock market suffered its worst crash since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, with the Dow plunging 2,231 points on Friday, according to CNN.

US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that it was “now becoming clear that the tariff increases will be significantly larger than expected.” 

“While tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation, it is also possible that the effects could be more persistent,” Powell added.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt denied that the restrictions would hurt US businesses. “There’s not going to be any pain for American-owned companies and American workers, because their jobs are going to come back home, and again, as for prices, President Trump is working on tax cuts to put more money back into the pockets of Americans,” she told NewsNation on Thursday.

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On April 2, Trump announced a 10% baseline tariff on all imports and additional “reciprocal” duties on dozens of countries he said had an unfair trade imbalance with the US. The president argued that many nations were “ripping off” American citizens through “harmful policies like currency manipulation and exorbitant value-added taxes.”

China has reacted by imposing a 34% tariff on American goods, matching Trump’s levy on Chinese products. The EU has condemned the US tariffs and vowed to adopt “further countermeasures” in response.

Canada said it would counter Trump’s “series of unwarranted and unjustified tariffs” with a 25% levy on cars imported from the US.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the head of the World Trade Organization, said that an all-out trade war would be “destructive for the global economy.” She warned that the tariffs lead to a contraction of around 1% of global merchandise trade.