WASHINGTON — Economists have some advice for Americans who have been worried about President Donald Trump’s trade war potentially tanking the U.S. economy: Keep worrying.

While stock markets soared Wednesday after Trump announced on social media that he was pausing his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs, few noticed in the euphoria of the moment that the remaining import taxes nevertheless were higher than the ones imposed by the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which brought on the Great Depression nearly a century ago.

The near-term effect of Trump’s tariffs will be a $2.4 trillion tax increase on American importers over 10 years — resulting in a $4,400 per household increase in prices, according to an analysis by the Budget Lab program at Yale University.

“Recession risks remain substantial. Uncertainty remains high,” said Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan economist. “Even during this pause, the U.S. is still the most heavily tariffed industrialized nation in the world, and it’s not even close.”

Much of the renewed pessimism has resulted from a realization that while Trump put off new, higher tariffs on imports from dozens of countries and is instead implementing only a 10% levy through at least July, his tariff rate on China, America’s third-largest trading partner, is now 145%. This results in an overall average tariff rate close to 25 percent, which in turn means massive price increases in consumer goods at retailers around the U.S.

“If China stays above 100%, they are similar in magnitude to what was announced on ‘liberation day,’” said Jason Furman, a former top economic adviser in Barack Obama’s White House.

That reality appeared to have sunk in Thursday, as the stock market resumed its downward trend that started in February and steepened after Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement of his tariff regime on April 2.

Even more worrisome for economists was that long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, normally thought of as the safest of safe investments because of the country’s size and stability, have been offering higher-than-normal yields — meaning that investors both here and around the world are losing confidence in the U.S. economy.

“Half of yesterday’s hopefulness has gone away,” Wolfers said.

Trump White House officials did not respond to HuffPost queries. Trump and his top aides, though, continued publicly making upbeat claims about their strategy.

“We had a big day yesterday,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, boasting about the stock market surge that took place immediately after his announcement on Wednesday. “In history, it was the biggest day in history, the markets.”

When asked about Thursday’s subsequent drop in those same markets, Trump claimed not to know about it. “I haven’t seen it because I have been here,” he said, referring to the Cabinet room.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who has repeatedly claimed that the best period in American history was the late 1890s because tariff rates were so high, said nations around the world are lining up to sign trade agreements with the United States. “We have so many countries to talk to. It’s incredible. We’re getting the respect we deserve now,” he said.

Foreign leaders and investors, meanwhile, have continued hearing remarks from Trump himself that reveal his failure or unwillingness to understand how international trade works. During a photo opportunity in the Oval Office Wednesday, Trump yet again claimed that China was paying and had paid tariffs he had imposed.

“I took in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and taxes from China in my first term,” he said.

That is false. U.S. tariffs are paid to U.S. Customs by American importers, such as wholesalers and manufacturers, who then pass along those expenses as higher prices for consumers.

Similarly, while Trump and his aides continue to call his now-delayed tariffs on the rest of the world “reciprocal” tariffs, they are not in any way reciprocal. Instead, they are a measure of a country’s trade surplus with the United States. The more a country sells to the U.S. in goods compared to how much it imports from the United States, the higher Trump wants to tax imports from that country.

The formula mostly hurts poor countries, whose citizens largely cannot afford to buy expensive American goods.