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Tariffs have arrived, and the stock market has noticed.
President Donald Trump introduced broad levies on imports for countries around the world on April 2, dramatically impacting the future price of goods across sectors, and sending the stock market careening into uncharted territory. The Dow Jones has dropped more than 9% since the latest round of tariffs were, and the S&P 500 is down more than 10% over the same time period.
Business leaders who have remained silent for the past few months amid other major policy changes have begun to speak up about the latest economic moves. These are the major players in business and finance, from Jamie Dimon to Howard Marks, who are speaking plainly about the new global levies, and what they think they will do to the economy and the stock market.
Bill Ackman
Shortly after Trump won November’s election, Ackman wrote on X that business leaders were becoming “more confident about the country and the company,” and that “growth is about to explode.”
But the billionaire hedge-fund manager and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management felt differently this weekend, calling for a 90-day pause in tariffs, and warning on social media platform X that if President Trump doesn’t reverse his decision, the country is headed for a “self-induced, economic nuclear winter.” He added that “business runs on confidence, and the president is rapidly losing the trust of global business leaders.”
Howard Marks
The co-chairman of Oaktree Capital said in an interview on Bloomberg Television over the weekend that the country has “gone from free trade and world trade and globalization to this system, which implies significant restrictions on trade in every direction and a step toward isolation for the United States.”
Stanley Druckenmiller
The famous investor and former boss of current Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clearly stated his opposition to the Trump administration’s plans, writing on X Sunday that “I do not support tariffs exceeding 10%.”
Jamie Dimon
The CEO of JPMorganChase and the most prominent voice for finance in the U.S. wrote about tariffs in his annual letter to shareholders on Monday, and specifically outlined his thoughts on the new high tariff regime.
“[W]e are likely to see inflationary outcomes, not only on imported goods but on domestic prices, as input costs rise and demand increases on domestic products,” he wrote.
Dimon’s latest comments are markedly different from earlier statements in January, in which he said people should “get over” their concerns over tariffs because they were good for national security.
Mark Cuban
The billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of Cost Plus Drugs warned in a Bluesky post on Saturday that if the new tariffs stay in place for years and DOGE continues to make drastic cuts to the government, “we will be in a far worse situation than 2008.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/GettyImages-1835546589-e1744039497953.jpg?resize=1200,600 https://fortune.com/2025/04/07/bill-ackman-howard-marks-jamie-dimon-speak-out-high-tariffs-economy-business-leader-comments/Sara Braun
