President Donald Trump avoided appearing this Monday before the press on a day marked by the greatest fall in stock markets since his return to power in fear of a recession in the country and uncertainty for his tariff policies.
The American leader had three acts at the White House, including a meeting with executive counselors who advise him on technological matters and a ceremony in the Oval Office to swear in office to the new director of the Secret Service, Sean Curran.
According to the agenda distributed the night before, the three were closed to the press.
On previous occasions, although these acts initially appear as closed to the press are usually opened later to journalists, who can ask the president dozens of questions about a wide variety of issues in exchanges that can be extended up to one hour.
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This time, all the events remained closed and the White House spokesmen did not detail why.
“Animal spirits”
A senior American official, when consulted on the fall of stock markets, attributed volatility to “animal spirits”, a term coined by economist John Maynard Keynes to describe how human emotions can influence the economic behavior of consumers and investors.
That official argued that there is a “strong divergence” between the effect of these emotions on the stock market and what the White House is “really seeing” by companies and business leaders, considering that these actions of the corporate world are “more significant” to evaluate the state of the economy.
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A White House spokesman, Kush Desai, said that since Trump was chosen in November, industrial leaders have responded positively to their “United States first” agenda, which includes tariffs, deregulation and measures to favor the extraction of fossil fuels.
The volatile session in the markets occurs after, in an interview issued on Sunday by the Fox chain, Trump avoids forecasting whether its economic policies – focused so far in a wave of advertisements on tariffs – will cause a recession or not.
During his first term, Trump ended up giving in some of his tariff threats after falls in the markets. However, for now he has not given signs of backing.
He has repeatedly defended the tariffs, describing them as “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”, and has raised the levies on Chinese products to 20%, which were already subject to tariffs that imposed during their first mandate and maintained by the government of Joe Biden.
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In addition, on March 4 he imposed 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, although subsequently decided to postpone a month, until April 2, those taxes that will be applied to goods in the two countries included in the TMEC free trade agreement.
Trump has also postponed until April 2 the application of tariffs to the automotive sector of both countries.
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He also announced that he will impose tariffs on agricultural products as of April 2, and has promised, although without a specific date, the application of “reciprocal tariffs” to countries that, according to Washington, maintain tariff and non -tariff barriers against US goods and services.
In addition to tariffs, the market reaction is also due to the possibility that the federal government has to close this weekend if Congress does not expand public financing.
Last week, the financial entities Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase already reduced their forecasts of economic growth for the United States in the first quarter by citing the uncertainty generated by the commercial policy of the Trump government.
With EFE information
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