Trump makes flurry of posts as global markets fall amid fears of US recession
Donald Trump posted to social media more than 100 times on Monday in a frenzy of self-aggrandizing messages even as the global stock market fell sharply amid fears that his economic policies could produce a US recession.
Far from rushing to calm troubled waters after markets reacted shakily to his refusal to rule out a recession, the US president instead shared a blizzard of links on Truth Social, the platform he owns, starting at 11.44am ET with a link to a Fox News article about Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, raising defense spending before visiting Washington last month.
Dozens of other messages followed in rapid succession, most of them sharing articles praising Trumpās policies, economic and otherwise.
At 1.05pm ā shortly after the FTSE in London had closed down 1.4% and as media analysts were already floating the idea of a US recession or a āTrumpcessionā ā the president posted not about the economy but about Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and legal US resident whose arrest by immigration authorities on Saturday night stoked huge protest.
After a break of a few hours, another string of unadorned links appeared on Trumpās account, covering policies and obsessions including a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize by a Republican in Congress, then embedded tweets of Republican support for him.
After US markets closed ā with the S&P down 2.7%, the Dow Jones down 2%, the Nasdaq down 4%, and shares in Elon Muskās Tesla seeing their worst day since late 2020, falling 15 points ā Trumpās account was posting ads for The Apprentice, the 2000s reality show that rescued him from financial oblivion and set him out on the road to political power.
He later accused Canada of being āa Tariff abuserā and said āElon Musk is āputting it on the lineā in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!ā while accusing leftists of āillegally and collusivelyā trying to boycott Tesla.
As usual White House officials had been speaking anonymously to media outlets, seeking to explain what the president really meant and to attempt to calm growing worries over economic chaos.
Speaking to CNBC, one official said: āWeāre seeing a strong divergence between animal spirits of the stock market and what weāre actually seeing unfold from businesses and business leaders. The latter is obviously more meaningful than the former on whatās in store for the economy in the medium to long term.ā
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Michael Wolff, the author of four books on Trump, has described how many of the posts on his account are not made by the president but by Natalie Harp, a devoted aide whose closeness to the president has confused, angered and worried family members, according to Wolff.
Sarah Matthews, a White House communications aide in Trumpās first administration, has said in congressional testimony that it is āpainfully obviousā when a tweet or social post is written by Trump himself because of āthe phrasing of it, the capitalization of lettersā. She added that messages sent by aides āseemed a little bit more grammatically correctā.
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