JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the U.S. economy faces a critical stretch, while also warning of the ongoing uncertainty caused by President Trump’s tariff policies.
“The economy is facing considerable turbulence (including geopolitics), with the potential positives of tax reform and deregulation and the potential negatives of tariffs and ‘trade wars,’ ongoing sticky inflation, high fiscal deficits and still rather high asset prices and volatility,” he said Friday during the banking giant’s first-quarter earnings call.
Dimon told Wall Street analysts that JPMorgan expects tariffs to increase inflation roughly 0.5% this year. But he also expressed confidence that the Trump administration is eager to negotiate trade agreements with other countries, which would ease the strain on the economy.
“I would like to see the administration negotiate trade deals. I think that will be good for everybody, and they want to do it, too,” he said.
Dimon, considered the country’s most influential banking leader, said earlier this week that U.S. tariffs could lead to higher inflation, weaker economic growth and potentially even a recession.
“Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth,” he said in his annual shareholder letter Monday.
Mr. Trump this week paused most country-based tariffs for 90 days — a move that came as CEOs and Wall Street investors publicly pressed the White House to reconsider its trade measures and as financial markets gave a resounding thumb’s down to U.S. trade policies.
After suspending the “reciprocal” tariffs, Mr. Trump said he had watched an interview with Dimon on Fox Business in which the banker said the tariffs would make a recession a “likely outcome,” according to Bloomberg.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square, also decried the tariffs this week, saying on social media Sunday that “we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital.”
