Trump declares “economic revolution” amid warnings of looming U.S. and global recession
US President Donald Trump on Saturday doubled down on the sweeping tariffs he unleashed on countries around the world, warning Americans of pain ahead, but promising historic investment and prosperity.
The comments came as Trump’s widest-ranging tariffs took effect in a move that could trigger retaliation and escalating trade tensions that could upset the global economy.
“We have been the dumb and helpless ‘whipping post’, but not any longer. We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“This is an economic revolution, and we will win,” he added. “Hang tough, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic.”
Meanwhile, J.P.Morgan ratcheted up its odds for a U.S. and global recession to 60%, up from 40% previously, as brokerages scrambled to revise their forecast models with tariff distress threatening to sap business confidence and slow down global growth, according to Reuters.
“Disruptive U.S. policies have been recognized as the biggest risk to the global outlook all year,” the brokerage said in a note on Thursday, adding that the country’s trade policy has turned less business friendly than anticipated.
“The effect … is likely to be magnified through (tariff) retaliation, a slide in U.S. business sentiment and supply-chain disruptions.”
S&P Global also raised its “subjective” probability of a U.S. recession to between 30% and 35%, from 25% in March.
Other research firms, including Barclays, BofA Global Research, Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital Markets and UBS Global Wealth Management, also warned the U.S. economy faces a higher risk of slipping into a recession this year if Trump’s new levies remain in place.
Barclays and UBS warned the U.S. economy could enter into contraction territory, while other analysts forecast economic growth broadly between 0.1% and 1%.
Trump’s new global levies mark “the most sweeping tariff hike since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the 1930 law best remembered for triggering a global trade war and deepening the Great Depression,” said the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“We have a 20th-century president in a 21st-century economy who wants to take us back to the 19th century,” Douglas Irwin, a trade economist at Dartmouth, posted on X.
Oxford Economics estimates the action will push the average effective US tariff rate to 24 percent, “higher even than those seen in the 1930s.”
