Trump Crashes Stock Market With Tariff Announcement

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes – "Trump Crashes Stock Market With Tariff Announcement"

Release Date: March 3, 2025

In this high-stakes episode of Bulwark Takes, hosts Tim Miller and JVL delve into the significant turbulence in the stock market triggered by former President Donald Trump’s latest tariff announcements. The discussion is both timely and incisive, offering listeners a comprehensive analysis of the immediate and long-term implications of these policy shifts.

---

1. Introduction to the Market Drop

The episode opens with an urgent update from Tim Miller, highlighting the abrupt closure of the stock market just nine minutes prior. He details a substantial decline:

• Dow Jones Industrial Average: Dropped by 650 points (1.5%)
• NASDAQ: Fell by 500 points (2.5%), marking a 4% decrease for the year.

Tim Miller (00:00):
"The stock market closed nine minutes ago. A massive, massive drop of 650 points. In the Dow, it's about 1.5%, about 500 points. In the NASDAQ, it's about two and a half percent."

---

2. Trump's Tariff Announcement

The crux of the episode centers on Trump’s unexpected press conference where he unveiled new tariffs:

• Mexico and Canada Tariffs: Existing 25% tariffs will cease at midnight.
• China Tariffs: An additional 10% tariff on imports will be implemented.

Tim Miller (00:05):
"This comes on the heels of a Trump press conference where he said that the tariffs, the 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada... are going to affect tonight at midnight and then an additional 10% on China also going to go into effect."

---

3. JVL’s Analysis: Linkage Between Reality and Markets

JVL provides a nuanced perspective, emphasizing that the market's reaction indicates a healthier connection between real-world events and financial markets, which had previously been disrupted during Trump’s administration.

JVL (01:04):
"It's good for us as a society because it means that there is some actual linkage between, like, things happening in the world and the financial markets."

He underscores that the re-establishment of this linkage is crucial to prevent economic bubbles and ensure market stability.

---

4. Comparison with Reagan’s Trade Policies

The discussion shifts to historical parallels, with JVL referencing Ronald Reagan’s trade stance. Despite Reagan's successes in other areas, his trade policies were criticized for weakening American industries.

JVL (02:56):
"I allowed a lot of people, a lot of businesses to be taken. So I say that with due respect because he was so great on other things, but he was bad on trade."

This comparison serves to contextualize Trump’s current actions within a broader historical framework of trade policy impacts.

---

5. Larry Kudlow’s Commentary

The hosts analyze a recent statement from Larry Kudlow, Trump's former economic adviser, featured on FOX Business. Kudlow attributes the stock market's decline to the "tank" of the Biden economy, while ironically ignoring the impact of Trump’s own policies.

Larry Kudlow (04:17):
"The Biden economy, what's left of it, looks like it's tanking. Tax cuts and deregulation from President Trump are so important."

Tim Miller (04:34):
"The Biden economy, what's left of it, is tanking."

JVL counters Kudlow’s narrative by noting that the economy under Biden saw significant stock market growth, challenging Kudlow’s attribution.

JVL (04:44):
"Yeah, the economy was very good during Biden."

---

6. Potential Economic Consequences

JVL delves deeper into the possible ramifications of the tariffs, discussing how such abrupt policy changes can lead to increased inflation and potential recessionary pressures.

JVL (05:19):
"Tariffs are inflationary. He is looking to slow GDP growth down, which is check, check, that's happening."

He references historical market corrections, comparing the current situation to the COVID-19 crash and the 2008 financial crisis, emphasizing the severity of a potential downturn.

---

7. Public and Political Reactions

The conversation explores the broader societal and political fallout of Trump's tariff moves, particularly focusing on American farmers and Midwest communities.

Tim Miller (08:34):
"Blame Canada on this."

JVL contemplates the disproportionate impact on American consumers and specific regions, highlighting the psychological burden of sudden economic shifts orchestrated by Trump's policies.

JVL (08:23):
"The difference is that in America, nobody was looking for this and nobody thought that this was coming their way. And so it'll be surprise, right?"

---

8. Long-term Implications: Inflation and Recession

Looking ahead, the hosts discuss the likelihood of stagflation—a combination of stagnant economic growth and high inflation—as a possible outcome of continued tariff-induced disruptions.

JVL (13:00):
"Well if you want to go back to being dark and if we wind up in something recessionary but we also have inflation which is what it looks like. It looks like stag. It looks like we're headed for stagflation again."

They also speculate on Trump's potential maneuvers against the Federal Reserve, further destabilizing economic stability.

---

9. Conclusion and Takeaways

Wrapping up, Tim Miller emphasizes the enduring negative impact on investors and the broader economy, urging listeners to remain vigilant.

Tim Miller (13:32):
"So there you go. Take your schadenfreude while you can get it. Check your 401k or don't today and let me tell you Donald Trump making stonks go down."

The episode concludes with a somber reflection on the intertwined fates of political decisions and economic health, leaving listeners to ponder the far-reaching consequences of Trump's tariff strategies.

---

Key Quotes:

• Tim Miller (00:00):
  "The stock market closed nine minutes ago. A massive, massive drop of 650 points."

• JVL (01:04):
  "It's good for us as a society because it means that there is some actual linkage between, like, things happening in the world and the financial markets."

• Larry Kudlow (04:17):
  "The Biden economy, what's left of it, looks like it's tanking."

• Tim Miller (13:32):
  "Check your 401k or don't today and let me tell you Donald Trump making stonks go down."

---

This episode of Bulwark Takes offers a critical examination of the immediate market reactions and the broader economic implications of Trump's tariff announcements. By intertwining expert analysis with timely economic data, hosts Tim Miller and JVL provide listeners with a thorough understanding of the potential challenges ahead.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

Hey, guys, Tim Miller from the Bulwark here with my buddy jvl.

[JVL]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

We had to pop on here. The stock market closed nine minutes ago. A massive, massive drop of 650 points. In the Dow, it's about 1.5%, about 500 points. In the NASDAQ, it's about two and a half percent. NASDAQ now down 4% on the year. This comes on the heels of a Trump press conference where he said that the tariffs, the 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada that are pinned to fentanyl, I guess, are gonna go, are going to affect tonight at midnight and then an additional 10% on China also going to go into effect. Huh? JVL, you wrote about a month ago about the stock market's reaction to Trump and what to expect if the tariffs went into effect. What's your assessment here of today's reacts?

[JVL]

You know, it's, it's not good for Trump. I mean, it's, it's good for us in that it suggests that there might be some rationality to us being society.

[Tim Miller]

And it's not good for people's retirement accounts.

[JVL]

Not good for people's retirement. Well, but, but I do mean us, good for us as a society because it means that there is some actual linkage between, like, things happening in the world and the financial markets. And because what had been happening previously is that Trump was doing all this batshit insane stuff and the stock market was just, you know, as if there was nothing happening in the world. And so you mean it's a good.

[Tim Miller]

Thing for society in the sense that it's a sign that there are still, like, laws of gravity that like.

[JVL]

Right. There are linkages between the real world and what the financial world sees.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[JVL]

Right. And that's bad. It's bad when those linkages get broken because that's when you get things like bubbles. Right. When linkages between reality and finance are broken, very bad things happen eventually. It's just at first, some people get really, really rich.

[Tim Miller]

Well, to put some evidence, one on one side of the ledger, one on the other side of the ledger, about whether there's a linkage to reality and the stock market in particularly the MAGA media world, I want to play this pretty amusing ticker of Trump talking about, because just for context, many people, most people, I'd even say, not me, but most people thought that these tariffs were never going to happen. Right. Like I had a little egg on my face. Me and Sam Stein did one of these videos a month ago because they said I was like the tariffs are going to go into effect and he's going to keep them. He's obsessed with tariffs. You should just listen to him. He's too. And it would be humiliating for him to not do it. Sam was on the side of like, well, you know, he's a bluffer. He's a bluffer and he has a bluffer. And so a lot of people I think thought he was going to bluff forever. And here we are today and he's not bluffing. It's going into effect. And you can watch in real time the stock market drop as he's speaking. And let's just watch that on FOX News to give ourselves a little joy.

[JVL]

I'm a huge fan of Ronald Reagan, but he was bad on trade, very bad on trade. He allowed a lot of people, a lot of businesses to be taken. So I say that with due respect because he was so great on other things, but he was bad on trade. We are setting records right now, records like nobody has ever seen before.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I'm not happy he doesn't want money.

[JVL]

But yeah, you know, Donald Trump doesn't want peace. Otherwise he wouldn't be out here with these tariffs. I don't understand it.

[Tim Miller]

On the other side of the reality coin, so to speak, another little bit here on FOX Business. Here's Larry Kudlow, Trump's great economic adviser from the first term. Really rational guy, really believed in free markets and, and free people and traditional conservative economics. Principled guy and then got on board with Trumpism and, you know, tries to kind of backfill everything into his into as being good for Trump but also free market here. Here he is today. Jbl. Before I play, do you want to guess what his take was on the stock market side, Larry Kudla.

[JVL]

It's orchestrated by woke people who are paid by woke crisis actors trying to embarrass the president.

[Tim Miller]

Not so far off. Okay, let's listen.

[Larry Kudlow]

The Biden economy, what's left of it, looks like it's tanking. Tax cuts and deregulation from President Trump are so important. I sure hope we hear lots about it in the State of the Union message tomorrow. Meanwhile, the stock market down almost 700 points.

[Tim Miller]

The Biden economy, what's left of it, is tanking. It's still the Biden economy. When the stock market went up, up, up, up, up the entire time during Biden's.

[JVL]

Yeah, the economy was very good during Biden.

[Tim Miller]

Stock market go up during Biden and no, he claims to blame this on Biden. Well, I mean, what what, so what do you think? As far as I get, you had written out a column that kind of laid out the different options. And I forget I don't have it pulled up. So I forget like what your assessment was for how much the stock market would have to go down for people to really feel like we've reached a level of seriousness here. What's your sense for that?

[JVL]

Yeah, I mean the numbers I looked at was like three and a half percent. So three and a half percent of either the S and P or, or the Dow or the NASDAQ would be a line over which we are going from this could be bad to ah, ah, you know, white knuckle moment. Because the, the two big, the two big corrections we've had recently were Covid, when people realized that Covid was going to have a serious impact and the, the 2008 financial crisis after Lehman went out. And so in both of those cases, I'm forgetting off the top of my head, but, but it was, I think three and a half to 5% were some of the big initial drops where, you know, like all of a sudden people were lurching and catching themselves to try to understand what the new world looked like. And I wonder if, you know, you say he's actually going to do it, he hasn't done it yet. He says midnight.

[Tim Miller]

This is true.

[JVL]

Right? Like maybe, maybe we get another last minute stay for, from Governor Trudeau or something. Although I, I gotta say, if you're a politician in Canada, from everything I can tell that place is feeling more nationalistic fervor than ever before. And I get the sense that those people are happy to pay a little bit extra for whatever goods they have to pay extra for because they would love to stick it to fatty Trump. And I don't know, like, if you're a politician up in Canada, could you possibly lose by saying by getting super macho and just calling Trump's bluff on this? I don't think so.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I think that, I think that the reason that they're not doing that is because I can't just is economically tied to us to a great deal like into a greater percentage just by nature of size. Right. So I think that there, and I think there's going to be real economic consequences for Canada if you're, you're right. If he goes.

[JVL]

Yeah, if he goes, sure there will be. But also like, you know, I think it is one thing to have economic consequences imposed upon you by a bad guy. Those become easier to stomach. Not stomach, but you know what I'm saying, like, easier to endure because you have. You have somebody to hate. You have somebody who's responsible for it, who can. Unlike in America, where if we get this, if you're in the Midwest, you know. Cause the prices that, you know, where they get all their lumber for construction and all of their gas from oil, from, like, I don't know, the, the ability for the Canadians to make life impossible for every Republican in the industrialized Midwest and to really target Trump friendly people and Trump friendly businesses, they can impose a great deal of pain. And the difference is that in America, nobody was looking for this and nobody thought that this was coming their way. And so it'll be surprise, right? And I just think in terms of the relative, the psychology of this, who feels it more? I think it'll be America that feels.

[Tim Miller]

It more just because of life. Everything's about expectations in life. Maybe.

[JVL]

Yeah, yeah. And like, who's to blame then? Right? And the person to blame will be Trump, right?

[Tim Miller]

The.

[JVL]

Blame Canada on this.

[Tim Miller]

On top of that.

[JVL]

Blame Canada.

[Tim Miller]

I do love that song. On top of that, you know, the farmer you mentioned, the Midwest farmers are going to feel this. Trump sends out a bleat today that's like, insane. It's like, don't worry, farmers.

[JVL]

We're going to sell a lot more soybeans to Americans.

[Tim Miller]

We're going to tear up all these foreign agriculture products. And so you're going to be able to sell right here in America. It's like farms, but also, I guess, to the people that were getting products from overseas, is his theory, if you want to even try to explain it. But, But I don't. You know, I'm not a farmer, but I'm in a farm family, all right? My husband's family, as I did some farming farmers fucking, like, plan out, like, seasons in advance, you know, it's not like, you know what I mean? Like, the whole global trade system now of like, oh, we're doing X bushels of this and it's gonna go overseas. Like, the idea that just, oh, tomorrow Trump can be like, boom. And you can say, oh, I have new clientele in Wyoming, you know, is like, that's. It's ludicrous.

[JVL]

Is there an underdeveloped soybean market in America where the truth is, you know, really, if they had only been allowed to sell soybeans to other Americans, then, you know, they would have really been. No, the whole thing is preposterous. I suspect what will happen, though, is Trump will go around bailing out the constituencies that he views as important to him and so he'll buy them off. And again, he did this the last time, specifically with one of my favorite stats.

[Tim Miller]

The buyouts to the farmers from the tariffs last time cost more than, I believe, the entire State Department budget. Yeah, like that's how much we spent buying out farm.

[JVL]

And you have this coupled with the, the end of usaid, which again bought a lot of this stuff from American farmers and shipped it overseas. And so now all that demand is just disappearing, going up overnight. You have, this is, I mean, you talked about this with, with Murphy, I think on the, the flagship pod about how what you have here is a guy who is doing inflationary stuff. Tariffs are inflationary. He is looking to slow GDP growth down, which is check, check, that's happening. He is doing some version of austerity within the government by cutting government payroll without really cutting government spending, like, which is going to have again all sorts of downstream effects as you just wind up with big numbers of people entering, entering the labor pool all of a sudden without jobs. This is, this is playing with fire and this is asking for a recession. And here I'll ask you something, Tim. Does Donald Trump look to you like a guy who's governing in such a manner that he cares about public opinion or future elections?

[Tim Miller]

No, he doesn't. And that is alarming. It's hard for me to transition into you alluding to the end of democracy into a couple other tariff facts. But I do have a couple other things I want to hit.

[JVL]

Why not?

[Tim Miller]

So we're just going to do a hard transfer, hard right turn. Everyone can just sit with what JVL was implying there. And, and you can just think about that as you go to sleep tonight. In the meantime, just Joey Joseph Politano, who's a good economics guy, follow, he points this out. Even if Trump backs, even if he was out again tonight and backs off on the Canada and Mexico tariffs and they don't go in now, a 20% tariff on all Chinese imports would be larger in terms of raw economic impact than all the trade war actions taken out through the entirety of his first term. So just the Chinese tariffs have a scale to them themselves. And I think obviously there'd be a market bounce back tomorrow if you pulled down on Canada and Mexico. But still there's this long term effect. And that also ties to another point somebody's making here, which is that the stock market is the short term pain, like the acute thing. But then even if that levels out, it's like the costs, the prices and the impacts on regular people. All of that is going to down the pike in the future. So it's just a massive shit sandwich all around.

[JVL]

Well if you want to want to go back to being dark and if we wind up in something recessionary but we also have inflation which is what it looks like. It looks like stag. It looks like we're headed for stagflation again. One of the things Trump will want to do is pressure the Fed into cutting rates.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[JVL]

And the Fed has already said that they don't want to do this so we could then wind up with a crisis where Trump is trying to replace the head of the Federal Reserve ahead of schedule.

[Tim Miller]

Great boy. So there you go. Take your schadenfreude while you can get it. Check your 401k or don't today and let me tell you Donald Trump making stonks go down. We'll leave it there and keep you posted. Subscribe to the feed. See you soon. Stonks down.