U.S. stock futures dropped more than 4% on Sunday evening as the White House remained defiant even after a two-day historic stock market rout that followed President Trump’s rollout of shockingly high tariff rates on most key U.S. trading partners, CNBC reports.

New York Times: After blowout week, Wall Street decision makers brace for more chaos.

Bloomberg: Trump team rejects market fears.

James Surowiecki: “Investors discounted everything Trump has ever said about trade and tariffs. We’re all going to pay for that mistake.”

China’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday said “the market has spoken” following the U.S. imposition of sweeping new tariffs and called for the White House to defuse the escalating trade war through “equal-footed consultation,” CNBC reports.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the stock market plunge has more to do with the emergence of China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence tool than with President Trump’s policies, Reuters reports.

Said Bessent: “For everyone who thinks these market declines are all based on the President’s economic policies, I can tell you that this market decline started with the Chinese AI announcement of DeepSeek… What’s happening with the market I’d say it’s more a Mag 7 problem, not a MAGA problem.”

Bessent, who ran a hedge fund, noted that “Mag 7” refers to the shares of the so-called Magnificent 7 — a group of seven high-performing tech stocks. 

“A sharp rise in trade-war intensity sent Wall Street spiraling Friday, pushing the Nasdaq into a bear market denoting a 20% decline from its peak,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

New York Times: “One of the notable things about the ongoing rout in financial markets is the fact that dollar is also tumbling. That isn’t how it typically works. In bouts of volatility, the dollar tends to do well, serving as a haven for investors.”

“The move also undercuts one of the main arguments that Trump’s economic advisors have long promoted as to why tariffs would not be inflationary. They argued that tariffs would raise the value of the dollar, helping to offset the impact of rising prices. Some strategists say the drop — even after a slight rebound today — reflects intensifying fears of a U.S. recession because of tariffs. Others say it could reflect something even more pernicious: Investors are starting to question U.S. economic exceptionalism.”

The Economist: “Watching all this, it is reasonable to worry that as Mr Trump pulls up the drawbridge, the dollar’s role in the global financial system is in danger. America’s rivals and allies alike have long sought alternatives that are beyond Uncle Sam’s reach, whether by developing new payment rails or agreeing to invoice trade in other currencies.”

“The world’s 500 richest people are seeing the biggest two-day loss ever recorded by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as fallout from President Donald Trump’s tariff announcement continues to roil global markets,” Bloomberg reports.

“As of 12:20 p.m. in New York, billionaires on the wealth list had lost $485 billion since Thursday’s stock market open.”

“Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said Friday that bigger-than-expected tariffs will translate into higher inflation and slower economic growth — and that the higher inflation could be persistent, not temporary,” Axios reports.

Powell said that the tariffs, and their impacts on the economy and inflation, are “significantly larger than expected.”

“Powell’s remarks suggest that the Fed will offer no imminent relief from plunging markets and scrambled supply chains.”

MarketWatch: “Since Jan. 17, the Friday before Inauguration Day, the U.S. stock market has seen $9.6 trillion in value erased… Of those losses, $5 trillion has been erased just over the past two days — the largest two-day loss on record.”

Donald Trump, on Truth Social, just before the stock market opened:

“To the many investors coming into the United States and investing massive amounts of money, my policies will never change. This is a great time to get rich—richer than ever before!”

Spoiler alert: It’s not working.

Financial Times: “Why is this happening? The orthodox view was that tariffs were positive for the dollar because they are inflationary — and therefore keep rates high — and make the US currency scarcer.”

“However, the dollar’s recent weakness could be indicative that these factors are getting swamped by broad and growing international misgivings over the US. The madness behind the methodology of the recent tariffs certainly doesn’t encourage faith in the coherence of US policymaking. Many analysts are alarmed, but probably none more than Deutsche Bank.”

Said George Saravelos, head of FX strategy at Deutsche Bank: “We are becoming increasingly concerned that the dollar is at risk of a broader confidence crisis.”

The Wall Street Journal estimates that $2.7 trillion evaporated in today’s stock market plunge — on track for the largest decline since March 2020.

Newsmax was briefly worth $30 billion this week before its share prices tumbled by 80 percent three days after its market debut, the Daily Beast reports.

In what seems like poor timing, Newsmax executives — along with Rudy Giuliani — rang the bell this morning at the market open at the New York Stock Exchange.

Punchbowl News: “Wall Street and global financial markets are reeling from President Donald Trump’s new trade war, frightening members of his own party on Capitol Hill even as White House officials insist they have no intention of walking away from its tariff regime…”

“Bloomberg reports that the market is down 10% since Trump took office, the worst 10-week start in a new administration since George W. Bush took the White House in 2001 amid the collapse of the dot-com bubble.”

“But no president has ever owned a market downturn quite like this…”

“There’s a huge disconnect today between the rhetoric from Capitol Hill Republicans and the White House. Hill Republicans insist that this is the opening stage of a negotiation between Trump and other nations over a new era of trade relations. But the White House says that’s not the case.”

For members: Republicans Own This

“Wall Street opened sharply lower on Thursday, following a slump in global markets, after President Trump announced a major round of tariffs on U.S. imports,” the New York Times reports.

“The world’s biggest economies reacted swiftly to the new levies, a significant escalation of trade tensions with the United States, and some countries warned of retaliation.”

Wall Street Journal: “U.S. stocks tumbled at the open Thursday, with major indexes dropping as much as 4%, after President Trump’s sweeping new tariff plan was deeper and more aggressive than expected.”

“Donald Trump’s social media company on Monday filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange commission that could allow the president’s trust to sell more than $2 billion of shares,” ABC News reports.

The White House yielded to investors’ pleas that President Trump hold his much-anticipated tariff announcement until after markets close, Semafor reports.

Trump is slated to lay out the details at a White House Rose Garden event at 4 p.m. ET.

CNBC: “Newsmax shares have risen more than 1,500% since its Monday debut, when it opened at $14 per share. It closed at $233 per share on Tuesday.”