The stock market plunge has more to do with the surprise emergence of China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence tool earlier this year than it does with President Trump’s policies, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Tucker Carlson released on Friday.
“For everyone who thinks these market declines are all based on the President’s economic policies, I can tell you that this market decline started with the Chinese AI announcement of DeepSeek,” Bessent told Carlson.
“If I were the analyze in my old hat, and this is the only time I’m going to talk about it, … what’s happening with the market I’d say it’s more a Mag 7 problem, not a MAGA problem,” Bessent, who used to run a hedge fund, said, referring to the shares of the “Magnificent 7” – the seven high-performing tech stocks that had helped drive the market higher before its recent selloff.
US stocks have tumbled by around 10% in the two days since Trump announced a new global tariff regime that was more aggressive than analysts and investors had been anticipating.