Wall Street giants sound warning bell on Trump’s trade war

Major Wall Street figures are expressing concern over the economic impacts of President Donald Trump’s massive tariffs on foreign countries.

Billionaire hedge fund investor and Trump ally Bill Ackman posted on X Sunday that the president’s new reciprocal tariffs on foreign countries were “massive and disproportionate” and claimed they do not distinguish between the U.S.’ friends and enemies. Ackman’s comments follow the president’s “Liberation Day” announcement April 2, enacting sweeping tariffs on a variety of foreign countries.

“President [Trump] has elevated the tariff issue to the most important geopolitical issue in the world, and he has gotten everyone’s attention,” Ackman wrote. “So far, so good. And yes, other nations have taken advantage of the U.S. by protecting their home industries at the expense of millions of our jobs and economic growth in our country.”

The billionaire hedge fund manager warned that 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,” the U.S. is “in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner.”

Ackman wrote further that Trump “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.”

“To state the obvious, it does not help our country’s and our president’s negotiating position to be trying to strike deals while our market is collapsing,” Ackman wrote Sunday in a social media post. “Whoever is recommending that idea to President [Trump] should be fired now.”

Similarly, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in his annual letter to shareholders released Monday that the Trump administration’s recent tariffs “will likely increase inflation,” also warning that they “are causing many to consider a greater probability of a recession.”

“And even with the recent decline in market values, prices remain relatively high,” Dimon wrote in the letter. “These significant and somewhat unprecedented forces cause us to remain very cautious. There is much more detail on all of this in section three.”

Dimon also claimed that while the U.S. “has had a rather healthy and steady economy for years,” the economy was “already weakening as I began writing this letter — and that was before the recent tariff announcement.”

“The economy is facing considerable turbulence (including geopolitics), with the potential positives of tax reform and deregulation and the potential negatives of tariffs and ‘trade wars,’ ongoing sticky inflation, high fiscal deficits and still rather high asset prices and volatility,” Dimon wrote further.

China’s Ministry of Finance on Friday said it will enact a 34% tariff on all goods imported from the U.S. beginning April 10 in retaliation against the Trump administration’s 34% tariff on all Chinese imports. Notably, U.S. stocks plummeted days after Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs.

Despite Trump reassuring Americans that the U.S. stock market will “boom” amid his economic policies, some Americans are beginning to sour on the nation’s current economic state. A majority of voters, or 54%, disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, while only 44% approve, according to an NBC News poll released March 16.

JPMorgan Chase did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Ackman also could not be reached for comment.

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