Amid global outcry, defiant Trump firm on tariffs
President Donald Trump remained defiant on Monday as global markets continued plunging and fears of a recession grew after his tariff announcement last week.
“Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient, and GREATNESS will be the result!” he wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform.
Trump accused other countries of “taking advantage of the Good OL’ USA!” on international trade and said “our past leaders’ are to blame for allowing this.”
The US President has insisted his tariffs are necessary to rebalance global trade and rebuild domestic manufacturing. He has singled out China as “the biggest abuser of them all” and criticised Beijing for increasing its own tariffs in retaliation.
He also called on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. On Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that the tariffs could increase inflation, and he said “there’s a lot of waiting and seeing going on, including by us,” before any decisions would be made.
Trump spent the weekend in Florida, arriving on Thursday night to attend a Saudi-funded tournament at his Miami golf course. He stayed at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, and golfed at two of his properties nearby.
On Sunday, he posted a video of himself hitting a drive, and he told reporters aboard Air Force One that evening that he won a club championship.
“It’s good to win,” Trump said. “You heard I won, right?” He also said that he wouldn’t back down from his tariffs despite the turmoil in the global markets.
“Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” Trump said.
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs issued a new forecast saying a recession has become more likely even if Trump backtracks from his tariffs.
China accuses US of economic bullying
Bangkok: China on Monday accused the US of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying with tariffs, while calling on representatives of American companies, including Tesla, to “take concrete actions” to resolve the issue.
Putting “America First” over international rules harmed the stability of global production and the supply chain and seriously impacted the world’s economic recovery, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters.
Last week, Trump put an additional 34 per cent tariff on Chinese goods as part of “Liberation Day”, on top of two rounds of 10 per cent tariffs already declared in February and March, which Trump said were due to Beijing’s role in the fentanyl crisis.
China and other governments retaliated quickly. China announced its own 34 per cent tariff rate on US goods, mirroring Trump’s tariff rate for China.
On Monday, Beijing struck a note of confidence even as markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai tumbled. The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, had strong words. “The sky won’t fall,” it declared, even if the US tariffs have an impact.
“Faced with the indiscriminate punches of US taxes, we know what we are doing and we have tools at our disposal,” it added.
Pak hopes for talks, Yunus requests postponement
Bangkok: The impact of Trump’s blast of tariff hikes reverberated across the world Monday as America’s trading partners puzzled over whether there was room for negotiating better deals. Pakistan has planned to send a delegation to Washington this month to try negotiating the 29 per cent tariffs, officials said.
Bangladesh Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus addressed a letter to Trump requesting him to postpone the application of the tariffs on Bangladesh for three months to allow the interim government to smoothly implement its initiative to substantially increase US exports to the country, the Chief Adviser’s Press Wing said in a statement.
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