CNBC’s Liesman: Trump tariffs like steering Titanic ‘toward the iceberg’
CNBC's senior economics reporter Steve Liesman said that President Trump’s new sweeping tariffs are equal to steering the Titanic “toward the iceberg.”
“And I guess another way to think about it is this. You know, the Titanic hit an iceberg by accident. This is the equivalent of steering the Titanic towards the iceberg,” Liesman said during his Friday night appearance on MSNBC’s “All In” show.
“What’s not happening here is the market is not pricing in some form of ‘golden age’ where manufacturing comes back to America and this country prospers as a result of that,” Liesman told MSNBC host Chris Hayes. “The market prices in future values and that’s not happening.”
Trump rolled out a new package of tariffs, targeting nearly every country in the world. He imposed a flat 10 percent tariff on all goods coming into the country and steeper reciprocal tariffs against dozens of nations.
The president and his allies have argued that the new tariff agenda will improve domestic manufacturing, increase the number of jobs in the U.S. and help out with stemming the flow of illegal drugs into the country.
Trump doubled down on his administration’s trade approach, saying the U.S. has been a “dumb and helpless ‘whipping post,’ but not any longer. We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before. Already, more than FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS OF INVESTMENT, and rising fast!”
Despite standing behind the newly implemented tariffs, the stock market has dropped in recent days, a majority of Americans disapprove of the economic approach and experts have issued warnings about a potential recession.
Liesman, who has expressed opposition to Trump’s trade policies before, said on MSNBC that “[I]f you take a step back, what’s really happening here, Chris, is the market is pricing in the high probability of a recession.”
“That’s really what this is all about right now. How much? How little? We don’t know. I will say that if there is going to be a recession, there could be further for stocks to fall here,” the veteran financial news analyst said.