- As financial markets and Corporate America reel from uncertainty on tariffs, President Donald Trump was asked if CEOs can expect more clarity on his plans. During an interview with Fox News, he reaffirmed that reciprocal tariffs will take effect on April 2 and said duties may go up even further and won’t go down.
President Donald Trump said tariffs won’t go down and could continue going up, as financial markets, Corporate America, and trading partners reel from recent whiplash on his policies.
In an interview with Fox News that aired on Sunday, he was asked why he paused tariffs on large swaths of imports from Canada and Mexico for a month. That’s after an earlier month-long hold on all tariffs on the countries.
Trump said it was to help Mexico, Canada, and the automakers, but he reaffirmed that reciprocal tariffs will go into effect on April 2, meaning the US will impose duties that match what other countries levy on US goods.
Later in the interview, he was asked if there will be anymore changes to tariffs after April 2 and if CEOs will have more clarity.
“You’ll have a lot, but it may go up with some tariffs. It depends. We may go up. I don’t think we’ll go down, but we may go up,” Trump replied.
He added that CEOs already have plenty of clarity and just say that they need more “almost like a soundbite.”
“They always say that, ‘We want clarity.’ Look, our country has been ripped off for decades—for many, many decades—and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore,” he said.
In addition to tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, Trump has threatened tariffs on steel, aluminum, the European Union, chips, autos, and pharmaceuticals.
The tariffs, and the uncertainty that threats of additional levies creates, have not only weighed on the stock market, but they are affecting consumers and businesses as well.
A range of economic indicators has turned south recently, with the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow tracker showing the first quarter is currently on pace for a 2.4% contraction after signaling 2.3% growth on Feb. 19. Wall Street analysts are downgrading their growth views and raising odds of a recession.
During the Fox News interview, Trump was asked if he expects a recession this year. He replied, “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing.”
He previously acknowledged that Americans will feel “a little disturbance” from his tariffs. On Sunday, he was asked if he was referring to the stock market selloff, or if disruption will come in some other form.
“What I have to do is build a strong country,” Trump said. “You can’t really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a hundred-year perspective. We have a quarter. We go by quarters.”