Trump responds to market crash, insisting tariffs are the only antidote in the United States

Original title: "Trump remains tough: Tariffs are the only antidote to save the United States, and more than 50 countries have urgently started negotiations"

Original author: Natalia Wu, BlockTempo

As tariff policies triggered turmoil in the U.S. stock market and global markets, an anti-Trump wave broke out across the United States last week, with 500,000 people taking to the streets to protest. However, Trump still sticks to his stance on tariffs. Trump responded on Monday: "I didn't mean to let the stock market collapse, but sometimes I have to take medicine to cure the disease."

Global financial markets have been violently turbulent after US President Trump announced last week that he would impose "reciprocal tariffs" on many countries and regions. US stock futures plunged this morning, with the Dow Jones Futures falling 1822 points, a drop of 4.7%. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 futures plummeted by more than 5%. The Panic Index VIX soared through 45, setting the third highest ever since the 2008 financial tsunami and 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

The Taiwan stock market, which escaped the disaster due to consecutive holidays last week, also plummeted today, falling 2085 points at one point, reaching a low of 19212 points (or 9.8%), the largest intraday drop in history. Other Asian stock markets, including Japanese, A-shares and Korean stocks, also suffered a bloody spree, triggering the circuit breaker mechanism for a while.

Current trend of Taiwan Stocks

In the crypto market, Bitcoin fell to $77,000 this morning. The cryptocurrency market has over $890 million in the network in the past 24 hours, and more than 299,000 people have been liquidated. At the same time, gold, as a safe-haven asset, was not spared, and spot gold fell below $3,000 this morning.

Investor risk aversion sentiment drives the two major safe-haven currencies, the yen and the Swiss franc, to rise by 2.27% in the past five days to 146.584 yen against the US dollar, while the Swiss franc rose by more than 3% during the same period.

Trump: I didn't mean to let the stock market collapse...

As tariff policies triggered turmoil in the US stock market and global markets, an anti-Trump wave has erupted across the United States. More than 500,000 people participated in 1,200 protest rallies last week, shouting that Trump Hands Off (stop).

However, Trump still sticks to his stance on tariffs, which he posted on his social media Truth Social this morning, stressing that "tariffs are a very good thing", saying that it is bringing tens of billions of dollars in revenue to the United States, aiming for a huge trade deficit with China, the EU and many other countries, and insisting that tariffs are the only solution to the trade deficit.

According to Bloomberg on Monday, Trump told reporters on Air Force One:

"I didn't mean to let the stock market crash, but sometimes I have to take medicine to cure the disease."

Trump also said he had spoken with several unnamed state leaders. He reiterated that the purpose of imposing tariffs is to completely eliminate the U.S. trade deficit.

"They are desperate to reach an agreement, and I said, "We won't have a trade deficit with your country." We won't do that because for me, the trade deficit is a loss. We will achieve a surplus, or, in the worst case, we will achieve a breakeven. "

We must address our trade deficit, especially with China. Unless the agreement can reduce the US commodity trade deficit with China, I will not reach an agreement, and I hope this issue can be resolved. "China is suffering a huge blow now because everyone knows we are right," he said.

Trump also pointed his finger at Europe, even saying that he not only wants a trade balance, but also wants compensation:

"We impose high tariffs on Europe. They come to the negotiating table and they want to negotiate, but unless they pay us a lot of money each year, the negotiations won't go."

When people were worried that tariffs would lead to a rebound in inflation, Trump simply responded: "I don't think inflation will become a big problem."

Trump vows to reverse trade deficit with tariffs

White House economic officials revealed that more than 50 countries have called the White House to seek negotiations in the hope of mitigating the impact, but Commerce Secretary Lutnik emphasized on the CBS program "Facing the Nation" that Trump is "not a joke" and that Trump's tariff strategy will take effect on April 9 and will not be delayed, and "it will definitely continue to be implemented for days or even weeks."

Lutnik is optimistic that tariffs will stimulate the return of manufacturing. He revealed in an interview with CNBC on the 3rd that semiconductors have not yet included current tariffs, but Trump plans to move its manufacturing from Taiwan to the United States, and targeted tariffs may be imposed in the future.

More than 50 countries around the world race against time, trying to convince Trump to "keep people under the knife", but Trump is tough and said, "Unless the trade deficit disappears, we won't talk." Experts warned that this tariff war may trigger a chain effect, dragging down global growth and will not be alleviated in the short term.