White House shoots down rumors of 90-day tariff pause as Trump allies brush off recession fears
The White House wants to make one thing clear: The Trump administration is not backing down on implementing reciprocal tariffs April 9.
In morning trading Monday, markets whipsawed after confusion emerged over whether or not President Trump was considering a 90-day pause on his tariff rollout.
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Headlines that White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Trump would consider the pause caused an immediate surge in stocks — until it became clear that he didn’t actually say that.
“I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide,” Hassett said in an interview with Fox News when asked specifically if Trump would consider a 90-day pause. Shortly after that clarity emerged, stocks sold off once again.
The White House later described those headlines as “fake news” in a series of posts on X.
President Trump and some of his closest economic allies have spent the days since a “Liberation Day” tariff surprise shook global markets doubling down on this aggressive tariff policy while recession fears and markets in free fall have prompted some investors to clamor for cooler heads to prevail.
“Americans who want to retire right now, the Americans who put away for years in their savings accounts, I think they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations [in the stock market],” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Sunday in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
On Monday, White House economic adviser Peter Navarro said in an interview with CNBC that tariffs will pay for the biggest tax cut in American history.
“Don’t get panicked out by all of this,” Navarro said. “The broadest-based tax cut in American history is coming in a matter of months, so any discussions of recession seem silly when you factor that in.”
Navarro also noted the recent movement in Treasury yields as investors flock to bonds. The 10-year yield (^TNX) has fallen as much as 20 basis points since Trump’s tariff announcement.
“The Fed is not going to do its job,” Navarro said. “But the long bond is doing it.”
Other members of the administration have also downplayed the impact tariffs might have on the US economy.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that Trump’s protectionist agenda would restore domestic manufacturing jobs and “reset the power of the United States of America.”
He added, “The army of millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones — that kind of thing is going to come to America.”
President Donald Trump waves as he leaves the White House to board Air Force One, April 6, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) ·ASSOCIATED PRESS
Over the weekend, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who supported Trump during the 2024 election, said Trump should delay implementing reciprocal tariffs, set for April 9, by 90 days in order to allow time to renegotiate.
Separately, longtime Republican and billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who previously worked with Bessent, wrote on X, “I do not support tariffs exceeding 10%.”
If the announced policy changes stick, the average effective tariff rate would rise to 22.5%, the highest rate since 1909, according to an analysis by the Yale Budget Lab.
Even members of Trump’s own party have questioned the move. Some Republicans, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, have voiced concerns.
“With massive American tariffs and massive tariffs on American goods and every other country on earth, that is a terrible outcome,” Cruz said on a recent episode of his podcast.
“It’s terrible for Texas — which obviously I care about deeply — and it’s terrible for America. It will hurt jobs and hurt America and there is a very real risk of that.”
In response to Trump’s tariffs and the market fallout, Wall Street firms have slashed year-end forecasts and upped their recession odds as a result of the meltdown.
“Only a change, even if a modest one, in US tariff/trade policy will stabilize equity prices,” DataTrek’s Nicholas Colas wrote on Monday.
“Until there is an explicit catalyst to show markets the worst-case scenario (last Wednesday’s announcement) is off the table, stocks will continue to be volatile (at best) or decline (at worst).”
Alexandra Canal is a Senior Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, LinkedIn, and email her at alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
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