Trump digs in on tariff plan and threatens stiffer China levies as trade crisis deepens

WASHINGTON — Mixed messages on trade from the Trump administration threw markets into further turbulence on Monday, leaving investors, foreign governments and the president’s own allies desperate for an offramp from a dramatic increase in global tariffs scheduled to go into effect Tuesday night.

Yet President Trump, posting on social media and speaking to reporters throughout the day, gave no indication he was open to a rapid course correction, suggesting some of his new tariff rates — set at a baseline of 10% for all countries, but increasing substantially for some of the largest U.S. trading partners — would be permanent. Other rates, he said, might be the subject of bilateral negotiations without any guarantee of success that could take weeks, months or even years.

The mere rumor that Trump would consider a pause in the policy led to a fleeting rally on Wall Street, only for stocks to plummet again on word from the White House that the suggestion was “fake news.” The day of confusion led the Dow Composite and Standard & Poor’s 500 to post moderate losses at the closing bell, with the NASDAQ up a fraction of a point.

From the Oval Office, Trump said he would escalate an emerging trade war with China after Beijing said it would respond to a new U.S. tariff rate of 34% with an identical tariff hike of its own. In response, Trump said, he would add another 50% tariff increase on Chinese imports — a move that would result in Chinese products facing 104% import duties by Wednesday.

Trump also said he was negotiating on a bilateral basis with individual countries over their tariff policies and trade deficits with the United States, including Israel and Japan.

“We’re going to have one shot at this, and no other president is going to do this, what I’m doing — and I’ll tell you what, it’s an honor to do it, because we have just been destroyed,” Trump said. “We’ll be talking to China, we’ll be talking to a lot of different countries.”

He denied that the administration would consider a pause in the global increase. “We’re not looking at that,” he said.

“We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us, and they’re going to be fair deals,” Trump continued. “In certain cases, they’re going to be paying substantial tariffs. They will be fair deals.”

Conflicting messages

The president’s remarks came after a day of uncertainty, with several of the president’s top advisors sending conflicting messages over the president’s willingness to change course.

“This is not a negotiation,” Peter Navarro, senior counselor for trade and manufacturing to Trump, wrote in the Financial Times about the new policy. “President Trump is always willing to listen. But to those world leaders who, after decades of cheating, are suddenly offering to lower tariffs — know this: that’s just the beginning.”

Yet when asked whether the president was willing to pause the policy, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said, “I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide.”

“There are more than 50 countries in negotiation with the president,” Hassett said.

Later, Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said the administration would open negotiations with Japan to “implement the president’s vision for the new Golden Age of Global Trade” — just one of “50, 60, maybe almost 70” countries that had approached the administration to open talks.

Those negotiations, he said, could extend through June — a message to markets, sent after trading stopped for the day, that a fix to the immediate crisis would take time.

“It’s going to be very busy,” Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business. Trump “gave himself maximum negotiating leverage, and just when he has achieved the maximum leverage, he’s willing to start talking.”

Success of the talks is not guaranteed. On Monday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered “zero for zero tariffs on industrial goods.” But Trump said it was not enough, stating the European Union itself “was formed to really do damage to the United States in trade.”

Visiting the White House on Monday afternoon, sitting alongside the president, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel offered fellow U.S. allies a potential road map to appease Trump in the trade wars.

The president has argued that foreign nations, “friend and foe alike,” have ripped off the United States for decades, imposing both tariff and non-tariff barriers on the import of U.S. goods that have disadvantaged U.S. businesses.

“We will eliminate the trade deficit with the United States,” Netanyahu said. Before Trump’s tariff announcement Wednesday, Israel, a relatively minor U.S. trading partner, said it would eliminate all import duties on U.S. products. It was nevertheless hit with a 17% tariff rate by the Trump administration over the country’s trade deficit with Washington.

“We intend to do it very quickly — we think it’s the right thing to do — and we’re going to also eliminate trade barriers,” Netanyahu added. “I think Israel could serve as a model for many countries who ought to do the same.”

Allies urge a reversal

Stock markets reacted to the president’s policy announcement last week with a historic rout, eviscerating $5 trillion in value in just 48 hours.

As markets in Asia and Europe continued their plunge on Monday morning, and as U.S. futures trading Sunday night intensified, some of the president’s wealthiest allies on Wall Street began airing criticism of the new trade policy and pleaded with him to reconsider.

Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, told the Economic Club of New York that he had no doubt the economy was weakening, and could even already be entering a recession, because of the White House policy, Bloomberg reported. Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager who backed Trump in the 2024 presidential campaign, warned of a “self-induced, economic nuclear winter” if the president refused to back down.

“The president has an opportunity to call a 90-day time out, negotiate and resolve unfair asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country,” Ackman wrote on X. “If, on the other hand, on April 9th we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate.”

Recession risks

Goldman Sachs updated its assessment of the risks of recession this year from a 35% to 45% probability, following a similar assessment from JP Morgan Chase last week, warning of a 60% likelihood.

JP Morgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, wrote in a letter to shareholders Monday that increased inflation is likely, not only on imported goods but on domestic prices, as input costs rise and demand increases on domestic products.”

“Whatever you think of the legitimate reasons for the newly announced tariffs — and, of course, there are some — or the long-term effect, good or bad, there are likely to be important short-term effects,” Dimon wrote. “Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth.”

Even Elon Musk, a top ally of the president leading an administration effort to cut jobs across the federal government, went public with his concerns about the policy, sparring with Navarro, Trump’s economic advisor, on X over their respective qualifications to be advising the president.

“I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America,” Musk said Sunday. “That has certainly been my advice to the president.”