WASHINGTON — President Trump acknowledged Thursday there may be “transition problems” in the economy due to his tariff package — but insisted the duties would turn out to be a “beautiful thing.”
“There’ll be a transition cost and transition problems, but in the end, it’s going to be, it’s going to be a beautiful thing. We’re doing again, what we should have done many years ago,” Trump told reporters during a cabinet meeting.
“There’ll always be transition difficulty.”
The president postponed his global reciprocal tariff package for 90 days on Wednesday, save for a universal 10% rate on most imports and a 125% duty on China — which the White House clarified Thursday could rise as high as 145%.
That realization led the market to a fifth losing trading day in the six since the president’s “Liberation Day” announcement, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 2.5%, the S&P 500 dropping almost 3.5% and the Nasdaq closing down 4.3%.
“We’ll see what happens with China,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “We would love to be able to work a deal. They’ve really taken advantage of our country for a long period of time. They’ve ripped us off beyond anybody.”
The president also shrugged off news that Beijing was reducing the number of US-made films it would import, quipping: “I think I’ve heard of worse things.”
The administration now has until July 8 to work out one-for-one trade deals with the more than 75 countries that have contacted the White House.
“I thought people were jumping a little bit out of line, they were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday to explain his pause.
“Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it. I think it came together early this morning — fairly early this morning. Just wrote it up. We didn’t have access to lawyers. We wrote it up from our hearts.”
Sources close to the White House told The Post Trump was thinking about a possible pause since speaking Sunday with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who urged him to make deals with the eager countries.