National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Monday the “first quarter is going to squeak into the positive category,” even as anxieties around the economy rise nationwide.
Stocks were down sharply Monday, partly in reaction to a widening trade war triggered by the Trump administration, but Hassett said he wasn’t worried about a recession.
“[I’d] just be very wary, Joe, of conversations about recession or not, given that we had two negative quarters, that used to be a recession under Biden, and then that wasn’t a recession,” Hassett told CNBC’s Joe Kernen on “Squawk Box.”
“I think that what’s going to happen is the first quarter is going to squeak into the positive category, and then the second quarter is going to take off as everybody sees the reality of the tax cuts,” he added.
By Monday afternoon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 900 points, dropping 2.1 percent, while the Nasdaq composite was down 4.2 percent.
Since the beginning of the month, stocks have gone down steadily due to underwhelming economic data and topsy-turvy tariff announcements via the Trump administration.
“For sure, there is some uncertainty over exactly how the trade policy will work itself out,” Hassett acknowledged on Monday.
Last week on Fox Business’s “Varney & Co.,” Hassett said the U.S. is “not headed for a recession.”
He also said the tariffs “that are in place with Canada and Mexico are there because we’re fighting a drug war.”
Republican lawmakers have given public signals that they are worried over how Trump’s trade policies will affect the economy.
“The Canadian tariffs will definitely have a detrimental impact on the economy of Maine and on border communities in particular,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said previously. “We have, for example, a major paper mill in northern Maine right on the border that gets its pulp from Canada.”
