Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has long been considered one of the Senate’s budget hawks, recently gave advice that when the stock market tumbles, “it pays to listen.”
“The stock market is comprised of millions of people who are simultaneously trading. The market indexes are a distillation of sentiment,” Paul posted Monday on the social platform X. “When the markets tumble like this in response to tariffs, it pays to listen.”
His remarks come as markets began to dip after President Trump declined to rule out the U.S. economy from sliding into a recession.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 890 points Monday, falling about 2.1 percent. The Nasdaq composite also lost 4 percent, and the S&P 500 index fell 2.7 percent. Paul included a photo of the three market outlooks in his post on the social platform X.
Since the start of March, stocks have fallen in response to Trump’s announcement of tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, even as the president calls it a “period of transition.”
Trump said he hates to predict if there would be a recession in 2025 but argued he is “bringing wealth back to America,” which takes “a little time.”
The administration imposed 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, in what he calls an effort to curb illegal immigration and the movement of fentanyl into the U.S. The plan was met with opposition from the United States’s largest trading partners, and Canada has vowed to implement various restrictions on the U.S. in return.
The president also imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on China and has pledged to place reciprocal tariffs on other countries.
The decision plunged the country into a trade war with allies, even as administration officials insist it’s instead a drug war.
Wall Street is concerned a recession is coming after public and private job data showed underwhelming results of Trump’s return to office.
The tariff war has caused concern among economists that prices will be higher for Americans, and exports will decrease, hurting the U.S. economy. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have also raised similar concerns.
