Trump wants to play market hero. But the economic damage is done

“I guess they say it was the biggest day in financial history,” President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon. Later, in an apparent hot-mic moment, he told a fawning senator that the market was up almost seven percentage points. “Nobody’s ever heard of it. It’s gonna be a record.”

“I guess they say it was the biggest day in financial history,” President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon. Later, in an apparent hot-mic moment, he told a fawning senator that the market was up almost seven percentage points. “Nobody’s ever heard of it. It’s gonna be a record.” It was a historic day, indeed — the third “best” day in the S&P 500’s history. After Trump announced that he was instituting a 90-day pause on most new tariffs (minus China), the Dow added 2,900 points, or nearly 8%. The S&P 500 soared almost 9.5%, its best day since 2008, and the Nasdaq had its second-best day ever, rising more than 12%. And it was all thanks to Trump — the guy whose extreme agenda (and contradictory messaging around it) became a noose around the neck of global financial markets that were about to enter a doom spiral. Wall Street’s reaction to his reversal on tariffs is not a victory lap for investors — it’s a gasp for oxygen. Asset prices remain well below where they were a week ago, before Trump announced the tariffs. The past week cost US stocks $6 trillion in value as market participants prepared for a wildly uncertain future, all while knowing the president is prone to pulling the rug out from under their feet. Trump is clearly loving the sea of green on the TV stock ticker. But it’s going to take a lot more than one day of stock gains to undo the damage — to the economy and to America’s reputation — that his policies have done.