As stock markets continue to plunge across the world and the risk of a U.S. recession rises, Donald Trump has taken to social media to defend his sweeping global tariff agenda.
On Thursday, the president told reporters that the rollout of tariffs on all American trading partners was “going very well” despite about $3.1 trillion in market value being wiped from Wall Street in its largest one-day decline since the Covid pandemic.
This morning, on Truth Social, Trump claimed that China’s 34 percent retaliatory tariff against American goods was a sign they had “PLAYED IT WRONG” and “PANICKED.” It is unclear what he meant by that.
He later revealed he was negotiating with Vietnam, a major source of U.S. goods, over the tariff rate he set for them and implored Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to cut interest rates.
After yesterday’s historically bad day, the market sell-off deepened on Friday, with all U.S. benchmark indices plummeting after the opening bell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 3%, the S&P 500 fell almost 5%, and the tech-focused Nasdaq lost 6%.
The president, meanwhile, is at his golf club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Watch: Welcome to the uninhabited island Trump has hit with tariffs
You can’t make this up…

This is the barren, uninhabited island Trump has imposed 10% tariffs on
Coming up: Hearing into fate of wrongfully deported Salvadoran man
Attorneys for a wrongfully deported Salvadoran man will face off with Trump administration attorneys in a Maryland courtroom on Friday afternoon.
Despite the government’s admission of an “administrative error” that put Kilamr Abrego Garcia on a plane for El Salvador’s notorious mega prison, the Trump administration is “shockingly” not even trying to get him back, his attorney wrote in court filings this week.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney and family are asking a judge to order the administration to request the Salvadoran government to return him to the United States.
“This would be a very different case if [the administration] came before the court hat in hand, confessing error and assuring the court that remedial steps were underway, and arguing that the court should not short-circuit measures that were already in process,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg wrote.
“Instead, Defendants have already washed their hands of Plaintiff, of his U.S.-citizen wife, of his autistic nonverbal five-year-old U.S.-citizen child. Defendants’ proposed resolution of this state of affairs, which they caused either intentionally or at best recklessly, is nothing at all,” he said.
Supporters are rallying outside the courthouse ahead of a hearing in Judge Paula Xinis’s courtroom, which is set to start at 1 p.m.
The latest:
Judge denies Trump admin stay to continue letting go of federal probationary employees
A judge in Maryland has denied the Trump administration’s request to stay a preliminary injunction that prevents the government from continuing its reduction in force for probationary employees. The administration wanted it to stay while they appealed.
Judge James Bredar said he took “pains” to ensure the injunction was “no more burdensome to the Government than necessary to redress the irreparable harms faced by the Plaintiff States.”
“That relief was necessary on April 1, and it remains so today.”
What can Ancient Rome teach us about the fate of Trump’s tariffs?
Peter Edwell writes:
Tariffs are back in the headlines this week, with United States President Donald Trump introducing sweeping new tariffs of at least 10 per cent on a vast range of goods imported to the US. For some countries and goods, the tariffs will be much higher.
Analysts have expressed shock and worry, warning the move could lead to inflation and possibly even recession for the US.
As someone who’s spent years researching the economy of Ancient Rome, it all feels a shade familiar.
Read on…
Watch LIVE: Federal Reserve chair gives verdict on how Trump tariffs will affect economy
Watch: GOP rep says no more cheap goods from China ‘for the children’
Fed chair says impact of tariffs could be ‘significantly larger than expected’
Speaking this morning, shortly after President Donald Trump implored him to lower interest rates, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell tells reporters that the effects of Trump’s tariffs could be “significantly larger than expected.”
He added that the tariff could have a persistent — not temporary — impact on inflation and slow economic growth.
While tariffs are highly likely to generate at least a temporary rise in inflation, it is also possible that the effects could be more persistent.
Powell said that the Fed is well-positioned to wait to consider adjustments.
We are well-positioned to wait for greater clarity before considering any adjustments to our policy stance… It is too soon to say what will be the appropriate path for monetary policy.
Source: independent.co.uk