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Vice President JD Vance doesn’t know what everyone is so worried about and rejected concerns about the stock market meltdown following President Donald Trump’s announcement of widespread tariffs.
In response to Trump’s stepped up trade war, the S&P 500 had its worst day since 2020, falling 4.8 percent. The dive erased roughly $3.1 trillion in market value.
Tech stocks such as Apple and Amazon fell further, while markets in Asia and Europe pulled back. All three major market indexes had their worst days since the pandemic, and the U.S. dollar has been losing all its gains since Trump’s second election victory.
But according to Vance, it could’ve been worse.
“We’re feeling good. Look, I frankly thought in some ways it could be worse in the markets, because this is a big transition,” Vance told the rightwing broadcaster Newsmax on Thursday night.
“Look, one bad day in the stock market compared to what President Trump said earlier today, and I think he’s right about this, we’re going to have a booming stock market for a long time because we’re reinvesting in the United States of America,” said Vance.
“The people on Wall Street have done well. We want them to do well. But we care the most about American workers and about American small businesses. And they’re the ones who are really going to benefit from these policies.”
Economists have warned that American workers in fact will likely struggle mightily to pay higher costs created by the tariffs that Trump is imposing.
While the president often claims foreign countries pay tariffs, it’s American importers, including many retailers, that pay the tariffs and typically pass them onto the American consumer in the form of higher prices..
Vance reemployed an analogy used by Trump earlier in the day, claiming that the U.S. economy is a “patient who was very sick” and which has gone through an operation, and “now it’s time to make the patient better.”
Asian markets early Friday, meanwhile, opened again in the red.
The vice president also commented on Trump’s relationship with controversial tech billionaire Elon Musk, claiming that Trump has “full faith in Elon” after a Politico report that Trump had told his inner circle that the billionaire was on his way out. Vance said the Musk-Trump relationship was “better than fine.”
He also attempted to put some distance between the firings of three National Security Council officials after Trump’s meeting with rightwing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
Vance said the fired officials are “good people, but they weren’t helping his agenda.”
