The US president has explained the sudden tariff pause after telling Americans to “be cool”
President Donald Trump has admitted that his decision to delay further tariff hikes was driven in part by a sharp downturn in US financial markets, saying he was closely monitoring investor sentiment as people grew too “yippy” and “afraid” before announcing a 90-day freeze.
On Wednesday morning, Trump urged Americans to “be cool” and told investors that “this is a great time to buy,” after US markets lost more than $1.5 trillion in capitalization the day before. The sell-off came ahead of the implementation of a 104% tariff on Chinese imports and sweeping new levies on dozens of other countries.
Just hours later, the president announced his decision to keep most tariffs at a “baseline” 10 percent – except for China, which saw its rate raised even further to 125 percent. Speaking to reporters later that day, Trump said he had been tracking the markets closely before taking action.
“I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky. I was watching it. But if you look at it now, it’s… it’s beautiful,” he said. “But, yeah, I saw last night where people were getting a little queasy.”
I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know? They were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit… afraid.
Trump’s announcement triggered a historic rally on US stock markets. The S&P 500 closed up 9.5 percent – its biggest gain since 2008. The Dow Jones rose 7.9 percent, marking its best day since 2020, while the Nasdaq soared 12 percent, its largest single-day increase in 24 years.
While Wednesday’s surge added over $5 trillion in market value, US markets have yet to fully recover losses sustained since the president launched the tariff war last week. Still, Trump insisted his “reciprocal” trade actions marked a turning point.
“The big move wasn’t what I did today. The big move was what I did on Liberation Day. We had Liberation Day in America. We were liberated from all of the horrible trade deals that were made,” he said.
Asked whether certain American companies could be granted exemptions during the 90-day period, Trump said the administration would evaluate requests on a case-by-case basis. “Some [companies] get hit a little bit harder, and we’ll take a look at that – just instinctively, more than anything else,” he said. “You almost can’t take a pencil to paper. It’s really more of an instinct.”
Trump also cautioned that the situation remains fluid, adding that “nothing is over yet,” with dozens of countries – including China – now seeking to secure “fair” deals with the United States to avoid the full impact of the levies.
