Donald Trump predictably blamed his predecessor after some bad economic news was released Wednesday.
The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3% annual pace from January through March, the first drop in three years, as Trump’s trade wars disrupted business, the Associated Press reports. First-quarter growth was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the United States tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump imposed massive tariffs.
Stocks dipped after the numbers were released. The Dow Jones tumbled 400 points at the opening bell, the S&P 500 dropped 1.5% and the Nasdaq composite fell 2%.
Trump later took to his social media site, Truth Social to declare “this is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s,” insisting that the market collapse and shrinking economy “has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS.”
“This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th,” he wrote. “Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden “Overhang.” This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”
