Trump’s Friday pronouncements is an about-face from a more conciliatory position on tariffs his administration took in recent weeks, which itself was a pivot from its more aggressive stance in early April.
On April 2, the 47th president unveiled a base 10% tax on imports from the U.S.’s trading partners, as well as more severe tariffs on dozens of countries, especially China. The stock and bond markets shuddered in response, and Trump walked back his tariff plans soon after—excluding the taxes it levied against the People’s Republic.
“The economy still looks set to slow decisively but avoid recession, provided the administration refrains from imposing additional tariffs this summer,” Samuel Tombs and Oliver Allen, economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a May research note, published before Trump took to Truth Social on Friday.
