What has Donald Trump said about tariffs - as FTSE100 and global stock markets plummet

Stock markets plummeted around the world after Donald Trump warned foreign governments they would have to pay “a lot of money” to lift sweeping tariffs. The FTSE 100 fell by as much as 6.3pc to a one-year low and Germany’s Dax sank by 10.4pc after the US president compared the tariffs to “medicine”, triggering further carnage across global financial markets.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Sunday night, Mr Trump indicated he was not concerned about losses that have already wiped out trillions of dollars in value from share markets around the world. He said: “Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

His comments came after his aides sought to soothe market concerns by saying more than 50 nations had reached out about launching negotiations to lift the tariffs. Trump added: “I spoke to a lot of leaders, European, Asian, from all over the world. They’re dying to make a deal. And I said, we’re not going to have deficits with your country. We’re not going to do that because to me, a deficit is a loss. We’re going to have surpluses or, at worst, going to be breaking even.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said unfair trade practices are not “the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks.” The United States, he said, must see “what the countries offer and whether it’s believable.”

Mr Trump, who spent the weekend in Florida playing golf, posted online: “WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy.” His Cabinet members and economic advisers were out in force on Sunday, defending the tariffs and downplaying the consequences for the global economy.

Mr Bessent said: “There doesn’t have to be a recession. Who knows how the market is going to react in a day, in a week? What we are looking at is building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity.”

Mr Trump’s tariff blitz, announced on April 2, fulfilled a key campaign promise as he acted without Congress to redraw the rules of global trade. It was a move decades in the making for Mr Trump, who has long denounced foreign trade deals as unfair to the US.

He is gambling that voters will be willing to endure higher prices for everyday items to enact his economic vision. Countries are scrambling to figure out how to respond to the tariffs, with China and others retaliating quickly.

Is there any silver lining to Trump’s tariffs?

Lenders and estate agents in the UK have said tariffs may actually be bringing down mortgage rates on the market.

Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, said that “the positive news is that US trade tariffs announced last week have put downwards pressure on borrowing costs as markets price in an economic slowdown”.

Martin Temple, an economist for Leeds Building Society, said: “With sharp falls seen across Asian, European and US stock markets, underlying interest rates used to price both mortgage and saving products in the UK have fallen steeply. For mortgage customers, this fall is potentially welcome news, as we would expect these lower swap rates to start to feed through into lower mortgage pricing over the next couple of weeks – especially if these falls are sustained.”

However, this also means that savings rates on fixed products could also reduce, he said.