At a press briefing at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked about crashing markets.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The markets are crashing around the world for the second day in a row.
00:04The consensus is that the President's tariffs were much higher than expected,
00:09and based on economic formulas that people do not understand.
00:14What is your reaction, and what is the impact on Europeans?
00:18You want them to spend more on defense, which they are agreeing to finally,
00:22but how can they do that when their economies are crashing and they are now afraid to do it?
00:27No, their economies are not crashing.
00:29The markets are reacting. No, their economies are not crashing.
00:32Their markets are reacting to a dramatic change in the global order in terms of trade.
00:37And so what happens is pretty straightforward.
00:39If you're a company and you make a bunch of your products in China,
00:42and all of a sudden shareholders or people that play the stock market realize
00:47that it's going to cost a lot more to produce in China, your stock is going to go down.
00:51But ultimately, the markets, as long as they know the rules are going to be moving forward
00:55and as long as that's set and you can sustain where you're going to be, the markets will adjust.
01:00Businesses around the world, including in trade and global trade,
01:03they just need to know what the rules are.
01:05Once they know what the rules are, they will adjust to those rules.
01:08So I don't think it's fair to say economies are crashing.
01:10Markets are crashing because markets are based on the stock value of companies
01:14who today are embedded in modes of production that are bad for the United States.
01:18We have to be a country that thinks we're the largest consumer market in the world,
01:21and yet the only thing we export is services, and we need to stop that.
01:24We need to get back to a time where we're a country that can make things,
01:27and to do that we have to reset the global order of trade.
01:30The other part of my question.
01:32Well, the worst thing is to leave it the way it is forever.
01:34I mean, this just can't continue.
01:36We can't continue to be a country that doesn't make things.
01:38We have to be able to make things to provide jobs for Americans.
01:41That's it. It's that simple.
01:43China is an example. I mean, it's outrageous.
01:45I mean, they don't consume anything.
01:47All they do is export and flood and distort markets
01:50in addition to all the tariffs and barriers they put in place.
01:53So the president rightly has concluded that the current status of global trade
01:58is bad for America and good for a bunch of other people,
02:00and he's going to reset it, and he's absolutely right to do it.