The stock market plummeted at opening one day after President Donald Trump announced his “Liberation Day” plan: across-the-board tariffs on the U.S.’s trading partners.
At open on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,066 points, or 2.53 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite plunged 630 points, or 4.14 percent, and the S&P 500 dipped 176 points, or 3.12 percent.
The U.S. stock market’s unfavorable start to the day follows a global trend of sliding stock markets.
Before the market opened — but with the backdrop of dipped stock futures — Trump compared the new tariffs to a surgical procedure, writing on Truth Social Thursday morning: “THE OPERATION IS OVER! THE PATIENT LIVED, AND IS HEALING. THE PROGNOSIS IS THAT THE PATIENT WILL BE FAR STRONGER, BIGGER, BETTER, AND MORE RESILIENT THAN EVER BEFORE. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also weighed in on CNBC’s Squawk Box ahead of the market’s open. “This is the reordering of fair trade,” he said. “It’s about those non-tariff trade barriers. That’s what we are addressing.”
Some Americans fear that the reactions to the new tariffs are going to harm their retirement retirement savings — and some experts warn they might.
"For the small investor, the decline in value will be devastating, particularly for retired baby boomers," Peter Ricchiuti, a professor at Tulane University's Freeman School of Business, told Business Insider.
Sen. Adam Schiff predicted that Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs will actually liberate Americans from “being able to afford groceries,” “much of their savings,” and “any hope of buying a home.”
Global markets also reacted unfavorably, with the Asian and European falling Thursday morning. The Nikkei in Japan was down 2.77 percent at close while the European Stoxx 600 index was down by 2.26 percent by Thursday afternoon.
Tump announced Wednesday in the White House Rose Garden that starting at midnight, Americans will at minimum pay what he called a 10 percent “baseline tariff” on all imports “to help rebuild our economy and to prevent cheating.”
Leaders of the some of the U.S.’s largest trading partners have said they are already preparing reciprocal tariffs.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Trump’s decision a “major blow” to the global economy, adding Thursday: “We are now preparing for further countermeasures, to protect our interests and our businesses if negotiations fail.”
Other world leaders have denounced the new levies, but vowed to work with the U.S. to avoid a trade war.
But business leaders warn these levies will have deleterious impacts for American families.
National Association of Manufacturers president and CEO Jay Timmons said in a statement on Wednesday that Trump’s tariffs will “threaten investment, jobs, supply chains, and, in turn, America’s ability to outcompete other nations and lead as the preeminent manufacturing superpower.”
“Trump is going to war with countries on this,” Andrew Brenner, head of international fixed income at National Alliance Securities, told the New York Times. “It’s ridiculous. It shows no comprehension as to what he is doing to other countries. And it is going to hurt the U.S.”
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told MeidasTouch after Trump’s announcement: "The stock market is collapsing, and what that means is the retirement savings of everyday Americans are disappearing by the hour. And this is all because of Trump's reckless mismanagement of the economy and now, these tariffs that are being imposed are going to raise the cost of goods for everyday Americans by some estimates, by thousands of dollars per year."
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