JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The stock market had another volatile day. U.S. stocks bounced back and forth after several days of sell-offs in reaction to President Trump's announcement of global trading tariffs. Investors hope Trump will strike more deals with major trading partners to soften his new tariffs, but many remain worried about long-term damage, and the White House has said that more tariffs will go into effect tonight. NPR's Maria Aspan is here to talk to us about what's going on. Hi there.
MARIA ASPAN, BYLINE: Hi there.
SUMMERS: So Maria, I understand it was another wild, wild day on Wall Street today. Where did things end up?
ASPAN: Juana, I was hoping to have some not terrible news for you for once, but it was another chaotic day that started off well and turned into a sell-off by the end. The Dow closed down 320 points, or just under 1%. The S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq also fell. This all came as President Trump and his advisers talked about negotiating with more of the countries they've slapped tariffs on. This is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on CNBC this morning.
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SCOTT BESSENT: If they come to the table with solid proposals, I think we can end up with some good deals.
ASPAN: But what we saw happen next - the White House signals it might be open to negotiation, and the markets bounce back for a while - it all underlines just how much of this ongoing crisis has been caused by President Trump's tariffs. Economists across the political spectrum have been warning for months that these taxes will increase prices for consumers and could push the country and the world into a recession. Earlier this week, we saw some prominent CEOs, like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, start to speak out against the tariffs. And now they've been joined by more business leaders, even ones who have otherwise been very pro-Trump.
SUMMERS: Interesting. What are they saying?
ASPAN: The billionaires are starting to get worried. For example, Ken Langone - he's the billionaire cofounder of Home Depot and a Republican donor - and he told the Financial Times that the president was being poorly advised. And then he used an expletive I can't repeat on the air to describe Trump's 46% tariff on Vietnam, where, I should mention, Home Depot sources a lot of its products. There was also BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who spoke at The Economic Club of New York yesterday. He said the tariffs have already damaged the economy.
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LARRY FINK: Most CEOs I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now.
ASPAN: To be clear, the data does not show that we're in a recession right now, but there are mounting warnings that the tariffs are going to push us into one. Now, most CEOs have been pretty reluctant to criticize Trump in public, so the fact that more are speaking out now gives you an idea of just how worried they are about the damage the tariffs can cause. And we should note that even Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO who's Trump's close adviser and one of the wealthiest men in the world, he's not happy. Writing on his X social network, Musk attacked President Trump's very pro-tariff trade adviser Peter Navarro and called him a moron.
SUMMERS: I mean, that's pretty strong criticism. How is the White House responding to all of this?
ASPAN: Well, on the internal fighting between his advisers, White House Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters today that Trump isn't bothered by very different views on tariffs. She also said that almost 70 countries have reached out to Trump and that he's directed his advisers to create what she called tailor-made trade deals for each country. But it's still full speed ahead on some tariffs. The White House also confirmed this afternoon that Trump's tariffs will go into effect just after midnight tonight.
SUMMERS: What kind of long-term impact will what we saw today have on everybody's finances?
ASPAN: I think the best thing we can say is that today wasn't as bad as the last few days and didn't do as much damage to Americans' retirement savings. But it also didn't fix anything or restore the trillions of dollars that have been lost from the market since President Trump unveiled these taxes last week.
SUMMERS: NPR's Maria Aspan. Thank you so much.
ASPAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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