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Stock markets crater: Americans lost more wealth today than any day since 2020: Trump blinks [1]
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Date: 2025-04-03
On Thursday, the major stock indices sank in a sea of red ink. The investor class digested Trump’s tariff policies and threw up in the financial toilet. The market declines were so severe that we haven’t seen anything like it since Trump bungled the nation’s response to COVID in 2020. Here are the numbers:
Dow -1,679 points, -3.98%
S&P 500 -274 points, -4.84%
Nasdaq -1,050 points -5.97%
Russell 2000 -1,911 points -6.59%
When Trump came into office, he inherited a stock market headed up. In the early weeks of the administration, investors were confident that a pro-business President would roll out tax and regulation policies that would ensure the ownership class would eat cake—even as the workers who produced the wealth continued to scrabble for crumbs.
But then the bankers realized that the buffoon was serious about his trade plan — even as he instituted it in fits and starts. One day, the tariffs were on. The next, they were off. The markets quivered in anxiety.
On Wednesday, that anxiety became terror as the true breadth of the idiot’s ambition became apparent. The capriciousness of the numbers made the money-meisters more nervous. The administration installed tariffs on uninhabited islands. They targeted countries with which the US already had a trade surplus. They rolled out different rates on countries and their dependencies. They omitted Russia. And the math made no sense.
On Thursday, after the extent of the debacle became apparent, the result was predictable. Now, the S&P is down 11% since Inauguration Day, and the other indexes are in similar territory. I am not a market historian, but I cannot think of any time the markets collapsed when all the economic indicators — unemployment, inflation, interest rates, etc. — were looking generally positive.
Having a roof leak when it isn’t raining takes exceptional talent.
Meanwhile, as bad as it is now, we have yet to see the full effect of Trump’s mass expulsion policy. God knows what will happen if the guy gets serious about it. So far, the news has been full of stories of ICE’s incompetent sadism — but the total number of expulsions does not yet reflect the rhetoric. Let’s see how Americans react to increased food prices — on top of the growing cost of everything else.
Today’s numbers were so bad that Trump is now wavering. Despite his staff saying their Dear Leader has a spine of steel and is not about to cave, he caved. This is how CNBC just reported it at 5 pm EST:
“After multiple White House aides insisted that the new tariffs were not a negotiation, Trump said he would be open to negotiating with other countries about the duties. Trump said he would be open to tariff talks with other counties if they offer something phenomenal, Reuters reported him saying on Air Force One. Top trade aide Peter Navarro told CNBC less than an hour earlier that the sweeping tariffs are ‘not a negotiation’.”
The reader knows that Trump will spin any backsliding as a significant victory for him and America. Democrats need to be prepared to counter that lie. The slippery bastard must have his perilous economic ineptitude nailed to his forehead like a scarlet letter.
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