President Donald Trump said Sunday evening that he is not intentionally causing the ongoing stock market sell-off, but he said little to discourage it.
“I do not want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One Sunday night when asked about the markets.
The comments came as U.S. stock futures fell on Sunday evening, with Dow Jones Industrial Average futures falling 4.1%, extending losses from Thursday and Friday and implying that more selling is likely to occur Monday morning.
He cited the trade deficit with China as the reason for continuing with his tariffs plan despite recent market volatility.
“We have to solve our trade deficit with China,” he told reporters. “We have a trillion-dollar trade deficit with China, resulting in annual losses of hundreds of billions of dollars. And unless we solve that problem, I will not make a deal.”
“I am willing to deal with China,” he said, “but they have to solve their surplus.”
He also stated that he spoke with European and Asian leaders over the weekend about his administration’s tariffs, which are set to go into effect in the coming week.
Trump’s comments echo those of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who said on Sunday that the administration will stick to its plans for reciprocal tariffs on major US trading partners, despite the global stock market sell-off. Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, stated that the stock market drop was not part of an intentional strategy.
The comments by Trump and his team come after the president himself shared a link to a video on his Truth Social account claiming that the president was intentionally causing the markets to fall as part of his larger economic plans.
The video, which first appeared on TikTok in March, was shared by Trump on April 4th, two days after his tariff announcement.
