On Wednesday (April 30), President Donald Trump opined about the stock market’s freefall on his Truth Social media platform, aiming to blame former President Joe Biden. “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” he posted. “I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers.”
Trump continued, “Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang. This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!” A report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday showed that the American economy shrunk 0.5% in the first quarter of 2025, with inflation remaining firm. It’s the first such occurrence since 2022, capping off Trump’s first 100 days into his second term with the worst economic showing for the stock market since Richard Nixon was in office.
It follows a pattern of Trump to avoid taking responsibility for any consequences for his economic policy decisions. Last January, as the economy was faring well in Biden’s last year in office, Trump tried to claim credit even though he hadn’t been in office for four years. When he took office this January, the market surged in response. “Everyone is calling it the — I don’t want to say this. It’s too braggadocious, but we’ll say it anyway — the Trump effect,” Trump said during a rally in Washington, D.C. before his inaugruation. “It’s you. You’re the effect. Since the election, the stock market has surged, and small-business optimism has soared, a record 41 points to a 39-year high.”
But on April 2, Trump declared “Liberation Day”, where he enacted tariffs on every country in the world. The brushback has been swift, and there are growing signs that the effects will be hard on the American public as the summer begins. Observers have been noting the slowdown of cargo ships coming from China, even after Trump enacted a 90-day pause on tariffs while leaving China with a tariff of 145% overall. Polls have shown a downturn in Trump’s approval rates regarding the economy, and former Biden White House staffer Andrew Bates ripped Trump for his remarks, saying “Joe Biden publicly warned Trump against raising the prices he promised to lower with tariffs, which are now the biggest middle-class tax increase in modern history.”
