Stock markets have soared to near-record gains after President Donald Trump announced a pause on most of his sweeping global tariffs.
The president announced the decision in a Truth Social post Wednesday afternoon, saying that a pause of 90 days would be implemented immediately.
“Based on the fact that more than 75 Countries have called Representatives of the United States, including the Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and the USTR, to negotiate a solution to the subjects being discussed relative to Trade, Trade Barriers, Tariffs, Currency Manipulation, and Non Monetary Tariffs, and that these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States, I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately,” he wrote.
In the seconds that followed, U.S. markets surged – making up many of the losses since his “Liberation Day.”
The major indices, including the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and the NASDAQ, all rallied.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up over 6.5 percent, or nearly 2,500 points. If that figure holds until closing, it would be the largest one-day point gain in Dow History. Similarly, the benchmark S&P 500 roared up over 7 percent, gaining more than 350 points. The NASDAQ stock exchange was up nearly 10 percent, with a nearly 1,500-point gain in the minutes after the announcement.
“This is one of the greatest days in American economic history,” Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro touted on Fox Business Wednesday. “I think we’re going to call it the ‘art of the reciprocal trade deal,’” he added, referring to the president’s 1987 book Trump:The Art of the Deal.
Earlier Wednesday, Trump urged Americans to “BE COOL!” and promised “everything is going to work out well” in a Truth Social post. Minutes later, he announced it was a “great time to buy.”
Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat, poked fun at the whiplash of Trump’s words over the past few weeks, writing on X: “OUR PLAN IS WORKING PERFECTLY AND IS JUST A NEGOTIATING TACTIC BUT IT IS ALSO GOING TO BE PERMANENT AND WE WILL BE THE WORLD LEADER IN TEXTILES AND NOW THERE IS A PAUSE AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO CHILL BUT ALSO WE WILL NEVER BACK DOWN AAAAAAHHHHHH.”
The markets’ swift change in direction comes after last week ended in a stock market bloodbath.
On Friday, the Dow Jones closed down 2,231 points, marking the worst week for the stock market since 2020, and only the fourth time in history that the Dow lost 2,000 points in a single day.
“The bull market is dead, and it was destroyed by ideologues and self-inflicted wounds,” Emily Bowersock Hill, CEO and founding partner at Bowersock Capital Partners, told CNBC on Friday.
One day earlier, the NASDAQ broke a record, dropping 1,050 points for its largest one-day drop in the market’s 50-year history.
Still, the president remained confident, predicting outside the White House last Thursday: “The markets are going to boom.”
World leaders, however, had a different take.
At the time, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen called Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs a “major blow to the world economy.”
