Two weeks before Election Day 2020, Donald Trump and Joe Biden met for their final presidential debate, and the then-incumbent made a provocative prediction. “If he’s elected, the stock market will crash,” the Republican claimed, pointing at his Democratic rival.
That obviously didn’t happen. In fact, markets soared during Biden’s presidency. Instead of explaining why he had the story backwards, Trump repeatedly insisted that the major indexes were only up during Biden’s term because investors expected Trump to return to the White House.
That was laughable at the time, but it’s vastly worse now that he is back in the White House, and Wall Street has slid sharply, especially this week.
Asked about the recent selloff, the Republican initially told reporters, “I’m not even looking at the market,” which might’ve been easier to believe were it not for the fact that Trump has spent the last decade or so pointing obsessively at the major Wall Street indexes.
He soon after pointed in the opposite direction, saying he was paying attention to the stock market, but the recent downturn should be blamed on “globalists.” NBC News reported:
Trump on Thursday blamed “globalist countries and companies that won’t be doing as well” for the sell-off, and also said he wasn’t paying attention to the stock market. “I think it’s globalists that see how rich our country’s going to be and they don’t like it. Big market out there. But again, they’ve been ripping off this country for years. And they’re going to do great — everyone’s going to do great. But we can’t let this continue to happen to America. Otherwise we’re not going to have a country any longer.”
He didn’t appear to be kidding.
REPORTER: What do you make of the market selloff this week?TRUMP: I think it's globalists that see how rich our country's gonna be and they don't like it.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-03-06T21:13:52.370Z
It’s difficult to speculate as to how, exactly, Trump defines the word “globalist,” but by any fair measure, the president’s excuse was gibberish. Investors are selling stocks because they think the United States will soon become “rich”? When the market goes up, he wants credit, but when it goes down, Trump sees nefarious and unnamed “globalists countries” as the culprit?
These were the best talking points he could come up with?
The truth is far easier to understand. Trump’s economic and trade policies have injected new uncertainty into the marketplace, and Wall Street is reacting accordingly. If the president is looking for someone to blame for the latest downturn, he should be looking in a mirror.
