It's been one of the most dramatic weeks in the history of the U.S. economy — and the world — with Wall Street on a record-breaking rollercoaster ride.
A sudden about-face from the President also left the nation wondering — was Trump’s tariff turnaround an act of desperation, or sheer genius?
On Wall Street there was panic. Traders dumped stocks and trillions of dollars of value went up in smoke. It was followed by elation, as President Trump stunned an already shell-shocked market with an eleventh-hour reversal, pausing most tariffs for every country except China.
"I did a 90-day pause for people who didn't retaliate, and I told them 'if you retaliate we're going to double it,' and that's what I did with China," President Trump said.
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To the President's loyalists, this was the art of the deal at the highest level:
step 1 — Announce tariffs so extreme that America's trading partners had no choice but to beg for new negotiations.
step 2 — Isolate China.
step 3 — Give the rest of the world a reprieve.
"We have had more than 75 countries from around the world reach out to President Trump and his team at the White House to negotiate better trade deals for the American worker," said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
"It took great courage, great courage, for him to stay the course," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
That's the White House line, but there's more to it than that. The counter-narrative is that the blowback against the tariffs was so fierce — especially as investors started dumping U.S. Treasury bonds, which is how America finances its debt — that Trump had no choice but to back down.
"People were jumping a little bit out of line, they were getting a little bit yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit afraid," President Trump said.
And at the end of the week the President did score a win on the Hill — with his 'big beautiful' tax and spending bill getting a boost in the House.
But Wall Street is still on a rollercoaster ride, businesses and consumers are still on edge, and the U.S. is now bracing for economic impact as the showdown with China escalates.
The U.S. tariff on Chinese imports is now in effect — with prices certain to rise once existing stocks here are depleted — as are China's retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports. So despite President Trump's dramatic mid-week pivot — the consequences of his effort to re-make the global economy are still very uncertain.
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
