Billionaire Bill Ackman has urged the Trump administration to be prudent in its attempt to change the current trading system, which he says has served the United States well. Ackman warned against pursuing a course that upends the world order in a way that “disadvantages our country over the long term.”
Instead of the “reciprocal” tariffs that the U.S. has imposed, Ackman said he favors a 10% across-the-board tariff. He characterized this as compensation due to the U.S. for the “historically unfair trade practices that have contributed to our massive deficits and national debt.” He also proposed, without specifying, keeping “pressure on China to resolve materially unfair trading practices, IP theft, and currency manipulation.”
The billionaire’s comments came a day after he was quoted warning of an “economic nuclear winter” for the U.S. if Trump’s reciprocal tariffs were not paused. Ackman, who backed Trump in the last U.S. election, argued that a three-month pause would allow the United States to negotiate better deals with its trade partners.
Like other U.S. billionaire backers of Trump, Ackman believes the U.S. government’s current course could spell disaster for the country. While the U.S. President has since dismissed rumors he was contemplating a pause as fake news, some observers believe these reports helped limit losses on U.S. markets on April 7, the so-called Black Monday.
However, in his X post reiterating his call for a 90-day pause, Ackman expanded on why the Trump administration needs rethink its current policy.
“It does not make sense to have balanced trade with countries that are smaller than us and that have fewer resources to spend on U.S. goods, i.e., we will forever be buying more from Madagascar than they will buy from us,” Ackman argued.
He also repeated the argument that the manufacturing jobs that Trump wants to return to the United States are not needed. Ackman also implied that the calculations used by the Trump administration to determine the reciprocal tariffs to be levied exclude U.S. exports such as software, intellectual property, and finance. He asserted that the inclusion of these exports would “make the balance of trade statistics look much more balanced.”
Ackman also took aim at the Trump administration’s insistence on comparing the U.S., which has a larger economy and higher standard of living, with smaller and less developed countries.
“A goal of generating a dollar of exports for every dollar of imports is not a useful one, particularly on a country-by-country basis in light of our massively higher standard of living and having the largest economy in the world,” the billionaire said.
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