Trump, Republicans Shrug as Stocks Plummet After Tariffs

By Brett Rowland | The Center Square

(Worthy News) – President Donald Trump and some Republicans were quick to shrug off stock losses Thursday as the market responds to a jolt from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs.

U.S. markets plunged Thursday after Trump announced a 10% tariff on all countries that will take effect Saturday.

Trump also put higher individualized reciprocal tariffs on the countries with which the United States has the largest trade deficits, including China, India and Vietnam, among others. All other countries will continue to be subject to the 10% tariff baseline, according to the White House.

Sen. John Kennedy, R., La., compared it to whiskey.

“Tariffs are like whiskey,” Kennedy said on Fox News. “A little whiskey under the right circumstances can be refreshing. Too much whiskey under the wrong circumstances and you end up drunk as a goat. We just don’t know right now. But we’ll know within the next six months. If it works, let’s take a dozen. If it doesn’t work, the president will have to recalibrate.”

Kennedy said that Trump’s tariffs would set off months of dealmaking between Trump and other nations.

“If you want a surefire investment, go book as many hotel rooms near the White House as you can – because every foreign trade representative is coming to America to negotiate a deal with Pres. Trump,” he wrote on X.

Trump and the White House have previously said that they aren’t worried about Wall Street.

“The President wants to ensure that all Americans make out well, particularly Main Street – that’s the focus of these tariffs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. “But as I’ve said repeatedly, just like they were in his first term, Wall Street will be just fine.”

Vice President J.D. Vance said the goal was to stop losing American jobs. Previous trade policies reward companies for moving production to lower cost markets, he said.

“We’re going to make it harder to ship American jobs overseas,” he said. “It’s a total shift in the way that we’ve done economic policy.”

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick called the tariffs an overhaul of world trade.

“This is the reordering of fair trade,” he said.

Trump said mid-morning that the “operation was over.”

“The operation is over!” Trump wrote in all capital letters. “The patient lived, and is healing. The prognosis is that the patient will be far stronger, bigger, better, and more resilient than ever before.”

Kelly Loeffler, the 28th Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, said stocks are a snapshot of time in the short-term.

“This is President Donald J. Trump standing up for the American industry on a world stage,” she said. “The gravy train is over for the globalist elites who have profited on the backs of hardworking Americans.”

Loeffler called the stock plunge a “short-term adjustment.”

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said tariffs will make goods more expensive for American families.

“As I have always warned, tariffs are bad policy, and trade wars with our partners hurt working people most. Tariffs drive up the cost of goods and services. They are a tax on everyday working Americans,” he wrote on X. “Preserving the long-term prosperity of American industry and workers requires working with our allies, not against them. With so much at stake globally, the last thing we need is to pick fights with the very friends with whom we should be working with to protect against China’s predatory and unfair trade practices. That includes what we do on trade.”

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