Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claimed Friday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are doing “immense damage to our economy.”
Yellen said, “This is the worst self-inflicted policy wound I’ve ever seen in my career inflicted on our economy. The Trump tariff plans are doing immense damage to our economy. You can see that in the stock market, in the impact of these tariffs are expected to have on American households. And we’re even beginning to see what looks like a flight away from dollar-based assets in the financial markets, which is a really scary development.”
Cooper said, “How long? I mean, the, the the damage to the reputation of the United States, to the confidence people have or had around the world toward the United States is reflected in the dollar and investments. How long does that something like that take to rebuild?”
Yellen said, “Well, I think that could take a long time to rebuild. Dollar assets have long been regarded as the safest in the world, especially U.S. treasury bonds and bills. They form the core of the whole global financial system. And what we saw this week was a sharp increase. One of the biggest increases on record over the space of a week in long-term treasury yields almost 50 basis points. And at the same time a decline in the value of the dollar. This is really unusual pattern because in chaotic times, usually treasury yields fall the the treasury bonds are a safe haven. People buy them. That’s not what’s happening now. They’re selling treasuries. And there’s also downward pressure on the dollar.”
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