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U.S. president shrugs off comments that sent stocks into nosedive
Aug 2, 2019WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he was not concerned about a sharp fall on Wall Street which followed his remarks over trade with China.
He says in fact he expected it.
He went on to say that if China no longer wanted to trade with the United States, that would be fine with him.
Earlier Thursday Trump announced he would be imposing a 10% tariff on Chinese-manufactured goods worth $300 billion, as of 1 September.
The Dow Jones which had been up more than 300 points at the time, reversed course to finish down 280 points, an approximate 600 points reversal.
“The markets don’t like uncertainty and this is a bolt from the blue in terms of uncertainty,” Joseph Quinlan, head of chief investment office market strategy for Merrill and Bank of America Private Bank in New York told the Reuters Thomson news agency.
Prior to boarding Marine One to travel to a rally in Cincinnati, Ohio on Thursday afternoon Trump was asked: “Mr. President, why the tariffs against China now? And are you concerned about the nosedive the Dow took today as a result?”
The president replied: “No, I’m not concerned about that at all. I expected that a little bit because people don’t understand quite yet about what’s happened.”
“We’ve taxed China on $300 billion worth of goods and products being sold into our country. And China eats it because they have to pay it. Because what they do is they devalue their currency and they push money out,” he said.
“Our people haven’t paid, as you know. We’re also charging them 25 percent on $250 billion. So we’re taking in many billions of dollars. There’s been absolutely no inflation. And frankly, it hasn’t cost our consumer anything; it costs China.”
“Now, what has happened is a lot of companies are moving out of China so they can, you know, avoid. And China has had a rough twenty- – this is their worst year in 27 years, according to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. I don’t want that,” said the president.
“But when my people came home, they said we’re talking. We have another meeting in early September. I said, “That’s fine.” But in the meantime, until such time as there’s a deal, we’ll be taxing them.”
Questioned on what he would say to American business owners and consumers who are going to pay the price for these tariffs, the U.S. president responded: “Sure. Sure. What would you say when China, for the last 20 years, has been taking hundreds of billions of dollars out of our country? And we had a president that would never do anything – a number of “residents that never would do anything about it. What would you say?”
“For many years, China has been taking money out by the hundreds of billions of dollars a year. We have rebuilt China. So now it’s time that we change things around. If they don’t want to trade with us anymore, that would be fine with me. We’d save a lot of money,” Trump said.
Asked if he thought Chinese President Xi Jinping is slow-walking, and if the 10 percent tariff is a bit of a hurry-up call, the president said he didn’t know.
“No, I don’t know. I think President Xi, who’s somebody I like a lot, I think he wants to make a deal. But frankly, he’s not going fast enough. He said he was going to be buying from our farmers; he didn’t do that. He said he was going to stop fentanyl from coming into our country, it’s all coming out of China; he didn’t do that. We’re losing thousands of people to fentanyl. And very importantly, for many years, you know this better than anybody; you’ve been covering it for a long time, for many years, China has been taking out hundreds of billions of dollars a year and rebuilding China. It’s time that we rebuild our country,” he said.
“And, you know, the one thing I have to say, and you have to say this: What China is doing is they’re devaluing their currency and they’re pumping money out like they’ve never done before. And they’re paying for these tariffs; we’re not.”
As the proposed tariffs will not kick in until 1 September 2019, Mr Trump was asked whether he was giving President Xi a chance to negotiate a way out of the tariffs.
“No. No, no, no. It’s September 1. The reason is, it takes a long time for the ships to come over. And it’s a period of time. So I’m giving him four – like a four-week period of time before the tariffs go on,” the president replied.
“But we’re now taking in tariffs on 10 percent on over $300 billion, and 25 percent on $250 billion. And it’s been proven that our people are not paying for those tariffs.”
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