An adviser to President Donald Trump said new sweeping tariff policies were not a scheme to sink the stock market, despite the president posting a video that claimed his trade war was part of a long-term strategy to force the Federal Reserve to slash interest rates.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett assured anchor George Stephanopoulos that the public won’t be facing economic instability during his appearance on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday morning.
Asked to address economists’ predictions of rising costs, Hassett told Stephanopoulos that while there might be “some increase in prices,” balancing trade deficits with major trade partners like China will actually lead to more jobs and higher wages.
Hassett said if open trade and cheap goods from previous policies actually made Americans “better off, then real incomes would have gone up over time.”
“Instead they went down because wages went down more than prices went down,” he contended, adding how President Barack Obama, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Trump have all pushed for policies that level the playing field for American workers.
“Just like he promised in the campaign, he’s delivering on this word,” Haskell said.
Stephanopoulos then asked about a video Trump posted over the weekend on Truth Social which said stoking a stock market slump was a “wild chess move” that would force the fed to lower interest rates.
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This week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite all plummeted by margins that haven’t been seen since the COVID era. Global markets all took similarly steep hits.
“He’s not trying to tank that market, he’s trying to deliver for American workers,” Hassett maintained, adding, “It’s a strategy to create a golden age in America for the American worker. That’s his strategy.”