U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted he did not intentionally cause the recent financial market downturn, reaffirming his goal to eliminate the United States’ trade deficit.
Financial markets have been in sharp decline since Trump announced reciprocal tariffs last week, causing Wall Street to lose trillions of dollars.
On Friday, China retaliated with 34% tariffs on American imports, escalating the ongoing trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
“I don’t want the markets to fall, but sometimes you need to take strong medicine to fix the problem,” Trump said, emphasizing that the U.S. must resolve its trade imbalance with China.
“We have a trillion-dollar trade deficit with China, losing hundreds of billions each year. Without fixing that, there will be no deal,” he added.
Trump also demanded financial reparations from Europe. “We imposed high tariffs on Europe. Now they’re coming to the negotiating table because they want to talk, but there will be no negotiations unless they pay us large sums annually — not just for now, but for past losses too,” he stated.
Last week, the President said he would only be open to negotiations with other countries if they offered the United States something “phenomenal.”
