Wall Street is getting anxious about Trump’s trade war

Some of Wall Street’s biggest titans are starting to feel anxious about President Donald Trump’s trade war.

On Friday, Trump posted on Truth Social that “80% Tariff on China seems right!,” which would be down from his hefty 145 percent, though he cautioned it would be up to his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who will be visiting Switzerland to meet with Chinese counterparts.

He also said that “Many Trade Deals in the hopper, all good (GREAT!) ones!” while also saying that “Costs down, NO INFLATION. Very different from what the Fed, and Fake News Media, were hoping for!”

This comes after the relatively small potatoes trade agreement with the United Kingdom announced on Thursday.

But for some of the most prominent voices in business, the relief can’t come soon enough.

In an interview with Fox 11 in Los Angeles, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon cautioned that the announcement with the United Kingdom was only preliminary.

“I think, you know, the tariff stuff is, it was very big and very large, and everybody all at once,” Dimon said. “A real trade deal would be 10 or 20,000 pages long. But any progress is good.”

Dimon’s words carry weight in Wall Street and Washington. In the days after Trump’s “Liberation Day,” announcements, Dimon told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo that a recession was a “likely outcome.”

“I thought it was too large, too big and too aggressive when it started,” Dimon said on Thursday.

The day after, Trump announced his pause on most tariffs — while keeping his 10 percent reciprocal tariffs and tariffs on China — he specifically cited Dimon. Of course, Dimon previously said “get over it” when people raised concerns about tariffs.

But Dimon is not the only one registering worry about a trade war. On Thursday, Ken Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, told Politico that “Tariffs open the doors to crony capitalism. The government starts to pick winners and losers.”

Unlike Dimon, who has good relationships with Democrats and Republicans, Griffin is a Republican megadonor. His words signal an increasing unease with Trump’s trade war and increasing impatience.

There is some evidence that Trump will use tariffs to punish his foes. During his Oval Office press conference announcing the trade breakthrough on Thursday, Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on Mattel.

“That’s ok. Let him go, and we’ll put a 100 percent tariff on his toy, and he won’t sell one toy in the United States, and that’s their biggest market,” Trump said.

This came after CEO Ynon Kreiz told CNBC that the company would likely not move production of its toys to the United States.

While Trump has specifically mentioned Mattel’s dolls, such as Barbie and American Girl, Mattel also makes plenty of other popular toys such as Hot Wheels, Fisher Price and Matchbox.

Then there is, of course, Warren Buffett. The Oracle of Omaha shocked many when he announced that he would step down as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. But while Buffett did not specifically name Trump, he warned against using trade as a “weapon” and that tariffs can be seen as an “act of war.”

“There is no question that trade can be an act of war,” he said. “It has led to bad things — the attitudes that it has brought out. In the United States, we should be looking to trade with the rest of the world. And we should do what we do best and they should do what they do best.”

Wall Street seemed to anticipate that Trump’s second term would be a return to the glory days of his first presidency, where they got deregulation, tax cuts and nominating Jerome Powell to the Federeal Reserve.

But Trump’s more unfettered and unabashed populist actions shows have made business much more nervous. And there is no sign that will change.