Business leaders from Bill Ackman to Mark Cuban react to Trump’s tariff pause
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Donald Trump paused his trade tariffs for 90 days on Wednesday.Bloomberg via Getty Images
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a 90-day pause in his tariff plan for most countries.
Stock markets surged in response to the pause after several days of significant declines.
Business leaders across the spectrum, from Bill Ackman to Mark Cuban, reacted disparately.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a planned 90-day pause in his aggressive tariff plan against some countries, sending ripples through the business community.
The market, which had plummeted following news of the president’s trade strategy, surged in response to the planned pause. Industry leaders from across the political spectrum gave their initial reactions:
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman wrote in a post on X, “this was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump. Textbook, Art of the Deal.”
Ackman had previously advocated for a pause in the tariffs’ implementation “to enable negotiations to be completed without a major global economic disruption that will harm the most vulnerable companies and citizens of our country.”
Ackman called China a “bad actor.” He wrote, “Advice for China: Pick up the phone and call the President. He is a tough but fair negotiator. The longer China holds out and retaliates, the worse the outcome for China.”
Former PayPal executive David Sacks posted on X to declare Trump’s reversal on tariffs a massive victory for the president.
“They did everything they could to create a panic,” Sacks wrote. “They predicted a Black Monday that never came. They became jubilant over an intraday correction on Tuesday. They were rooting for Trump to fail even if it meant the market and economy crashed.”
Now a White House advisor, Sacks continued: “Fortunately their hopes have been dashed. Trump has been vindicated. China is isolated, and the rest of the world is lining up to negotiate new trade deals. Do you think this would have happened if Trump had asked nicely? Maybe if he had said pretty please? Never. This was the only way to rewrite the rules of global trade. Once again, Trump was right about everything!”
“They did everything they could to create a panic,” Davis Sacks said.ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/Getty Images
Diane Swonk, the chief economist of the professional services firm KPMG, wrote in a series of posts on X that, despite the news of the implementation pause, the country has “not escaped the tariff problems.”
“The effective tariff rate is actually HIGHER with the pause than it was as announced on April 2, due to the tariffs on China,” Swonk wrote. “There will be some diversion through connector countries. However, the effective tariff rate now peaks at 30.5% during the pause. That is worse than our worst case scenarios.”
She added: “The tariff pause is a moving target and it given the high level of tariffs on China and 10% across the board plus potentially more in the pipeline, takes the effective tariff rate to a RECORD. The market must be hoping told all goes away.”
The founder of the hedge fund Tolou Capital Management was not too pleased with the recent back-and-forth over Trump’s tariffs, writing in a series of posts on X that we’re now “back to square one” after Trump’s latest reversal.
“Nothing accomplished. Nothing changed. But somehow we won. Nice,” Hakimian wrote.
In a separate post, Hakimian lamented the lack of clarity in Trump’s tariff strategy, regardless of the economic outcome.
“Even if you support all of the past week. From the escalation to the walk back, although that’s inherently contradictory to support both. Everyone admits that the rollout & rollback of all of this has been needlessly sloppy and unclear, correct? Or is that also some voodoo 8D chess strategy too?”
Chris Fralic, a partner at the venture capital firm First Round Capital, posted on X a screenshot of the tickers of several surging stocks, writing it’s “Good to be liberated from Liberation Day.”
“If your portfolio drops by X% and then rises by X%, you’ll still be below your starting point,” Fralic wrote in a separate post. “The bigger the drop, the more pronounced this effect becomes. A 20% drop followed by a 20% rise leaves you at 96% of your original value.”
Over on Bluesky, “Shark Tank” star Mark Cuban reposted a statement from economist Paulo dos Santos, which described Trump’s tariffs as “the Ivermectin of economic strategy,” referencing the anti-parasitic drug used by some to treat COVID-19 infections, despite reservations from the medical community.
In a separate post made just before Trump announced the tariff pause, Cuban wrote: “What some people aren’t factoring into their analysis is the reality that companies were buying tons of inventory to beat the tariffs. That’s cash taken from being able to invest or hire. In fact the probably cut costs and jobs as a result.”
Mark Cuban is a judge on “Shark Tank.”Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images
Ray Dalio wrote on X that he hoped all parties would “reconsider their approaches.”
“There are better and worse ways of handling our problems with unsustainable debt and imbalances, and President Trump’s decision to step back from a worse way and negotiate how to deal with these imbalances is a much better way,” he wrote.
The founder of Bridgewater Associates said he hoped Trump would do the same with China — which is excluded from the 90-day reprieve.
Dalio said a deal with China should include a way to strengthen the renminbi against the dollar while easing China’s fiscal and monetary policies to stimulate Chinese demand. “This would be a win-win.”
“As I wrote earlier this week, this was a moment for the US administration to accept their mistake and change course,” wrote Richard Branson in a post on X. “This reversal is a huge relief for the whole world,”
Earlier this week, the Virgin Group founder called on the US government to “own up to a colossal mistake.”
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump wrote that he’d raised his tariffs on China to 125% “based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets.”
“China doesn’t play fair, and it’s time we stop letting them get away with it,” O’Leary wrote on X hours after Trump’s announcement.
“Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary said it’s time the US stop letting China “get away” with its lack of respect for global markets.Reuters/Gus Ruelas
Bill Gross said investors should seriously think about owning a stock whose value relies on the whims of Trump.
“My portfolio of defensive stocks is green so I don’t begrudge today’s market,” Gross, cofounder of global fixed-income investment company PIMCO, wrote on X on Wednesday night.
He added: “But I ask you, would you want to own highly volatile US stocks whose price depends on whether POTUS had a good night’s sleep and woke up the next morning to reverse yesterday’s policies?”
