Trump brushes off the stock market nightmare
On a day the stock markets tanked, Trump flashed a new gold card with his face on it: a U.S. permanent-residency card, available for $5 million, which Trump is working to create.
“For $5 million this could be yours,” he said, speaking to reporters on his way to Florida for the weekend. “The Trump card. Gold card.”
Asked about the U.S. market’s worst day in years, he said “it’s to be expected.”
Several times today, Trump used an analogy to downplay the bloodbath in markets: that of an operation.
In this analogy, the U.S. economy was diseased, suffering from a chronic balance-of-payments deficit with other countries driven by too many imports of manufactured goods.
“It was a sick patient. It went through an operation,” Trump said. “The operation’s over. And now we let it settle in.”
Now, in Trump’s telling, the healing will begin.
He expressed an openness to negotiating with some countries, which is unsurprising given that he’s already announced plans to do so with Canada after the federal election.
But he insists it would take “phenomenal” offers from countries to reconsider, as he truly intends these tariffs to drive manufacturing back to the U.S.
“Every country’s called us,” Trump said. “Now they’ll do anything for us.”
