Bill Ackman and other billionaires and business leaders are turning on Trump because of tariffs
Wealthy business leaders are turning on US President Donald Trump over his plan to impose a colossal set of tariffs on America’s trading partners, as losses mount on stock markets around the world.
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman, who endorsed Trump’s 2024 presidential bid, warned Sunday that going ahead with the new tariffs was tantamount to launching an “economic nuclear war.”
On Wednesday, Trump said he would impose significantly higher “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries that have the highest trade imbalances with the United States.
In a post on X, Ackman said “business investment will grind to a halt, (and) consumers will close their wallets” if the new levies do indeed come into force. “We will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate,” he added in the post, which was viewed 10.6 million times.
Unless Trump changes tack, “we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down,” the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management warned.
“What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large, long-term economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war?” he said, adding that “the president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe.” [Continue reading…]
Major figures in the business world have spent the last 48 hours sounding alarms about the economic consequences of President Donald Trump’s trade war — some even reversing their previous supportive stances.
While many small businesses across the United States have for months decried Trump’s policies and the uncertainty they’ve injected into their operations, last week’s tariff rollout stunned America’s C-suites. In a CNBC flash survey of CEOs published Monday morning, 69% expected a recession, with 37% saying they expected to cut jobs this year.
“Disappointingly stupid and illogical,” one CEO said in describing Trump’s tariffs to CNBC. “Without faith that our government knows what it is doing, it is impossible for businesses to thrive.”
Speaking in a televised interview with Bloomberg, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink echoed the sentiments of the survey. “Most CEOs I talk to say we’re in a recession right now,” he said.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in his annual shareholder letter that Trump’s tariffs would “slow down growth” as “input costs rise and demand increases on domestic products.” On Friday, the bank raised its odds for a recession from 40% to 60%. [Continue reading…]