Trump said the tariffs would raise billions for the U.S. Treasury, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued that foreign producers and big retailers would absorb the costs of the tariffs.
“Tariffs are flowing into the USA at levels not thought even possible,” Trump said Thursday morning.
Stock markets were less impressed.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed with a loss of 0.5 percent, falling 224 points, as Trump’s tariffs went into place, while the S&P 500 index fell by roughly 0.1 percent.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite closed up 0.4 percent after being up by as much as 1 percent in the morning.
Trump closed the day with an impromptu economic announcement from the White House with the conservative economist Stephen Moore, pushing back on a Bureau of Labor Statistics report last week that found the economy gained about 250,000 fewer jobs than previously thought over the last several months.
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