A billionaire supporter of Donald Trump claims the president is ushering in an “economic nuclear winter” as markets went into meltdown today. Trump’s sweeping world tariffs saw London’s FTSE 100, which tracks the country’s 100 top listed firms, drop by around 5% on Monday as early sell-offs began just moments after markets opened.
Trump dismissed the market collapse while speaking to reporters onboard Air Force One on Sunday. He said: “Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.” However, experts are comparing his actions to the abysmal economic policy of Liz Truss, who was forced to resign as Prime Minister following her budget.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman was a supporter of Trump’s bid for the White House but has now demanded tariffs are scrapped in order to prevent an “economic nuclear winter”.
“We are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down,” he said, “By placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital.
“The president has an opportunity to call a 90-day time out, negotiate and resolve unfair asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country.”
Mr Ackman, who runs one of the world’s largest investment groups in New York hedge fund Pershing Square, admitted if the US launched an “economic nuclear war on every country in the world” then business investment will “grind to a halt”. He went on: “What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term, economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war? I don’t know of one who will do so.
He added: “And it is not just the big companies that will suffer. Small and medium size businesses and entrepreneurs will experience much greater pain. Almost no business can pass through an overnight massive increase in costs to their customers. And that’s true even if they have no debt, and, unfortunately, there is a massive amount of leverage in the system.
“Business is a confidence game. The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe. The consequences for our country and the millions of our citizens who have supported the president – in particular low-income consumers who are already under a huge amount of economic stress – are going to be severely negative. This is not what we voted for.”
Mr Ackman believes the US was “100% behind” Trump’s bid to fix the tariffs that have “disadvantaged” America, but warned falling stock markets could force employers to reign in their investments and consumers to stop spending.
As tension between the White House and Europe heats up, the Mirror has launched its very own US Politics WhatsApp community where you’ll get all the latest news from across the pond.
We’ll send you the latest breaking updates and exclusives all directly to your phone. Users must download or already have WhatsApp on their phones to join in.
All you have to do to join is click on this link, select ‘Join Chat’ and you’re in! We may also send you stories from other titles across the Reach group.
We will also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose Exit group. If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.
The FTSE 100 wasn’t the only index to plummet this morning. Germany’s DAX index record had a worrying drop of around 6.5%, and France’s Cac 40 was down around 5.3% this morning. Asian stocks also dipped to new lows overnight as the value of shares were wiped. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped by 6.3% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 9.8%.
At Reach and across our entities we and our partners use information collected through cookies and other identifiers from your device to improve experience on our site, analyse how it is used and to show personalised advertising. You can opt out of the sale or sharing of your data, at any time clicking the “Do Not Sell or Share my Data” button at the bottom of the webpage. Please note that your preferences are browser specific. Use of our website and any of our services represents your acceptance of the use of cookies and consent to the practices described in our Privacy Notice and Cookie Notice.
