JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon successfully pushed Donald Trump into pausing tariffs – by making his case on Maria Bartiromo’s Fox Business show because he knew the president was watching, it is claimed.
The Wall Street Journal reported as such on Wednesday, hours after the widely seen faceoff while tariffs were still tanking the stock market.
A source told the paper the banker ‘knew’ Trump and his inner circle ‘often watched Fox’, and that his message would thus likely get through.
Dimon previously warned persisting the policy would trigger a devastating recession, and week into Trump’s aggressive trade obstacles, that looked to be the case.
Days of volatility followed, leading Trump to announce he was putting a pause on most of the tariffs for 90 days on Wednesday afternoon – hours after Bartiromo’s interview on Mornings With Maria.
It was a surprising move that sent markets soaring again almost immediately – and one that suggests Dimon’s words also broke through.
During the talk, the CEO not only warned of a ‘likely’ recession, he made a candid case for cancelling tariffs.
The high-profile interview had been scheduled before, the same source noted – but the banker, whose word is widely regarded, is said to have calculated he could use his spot to break through.
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Jamie Dimon with Maria Baritromo on her Fox Business show Wednesday. He made the case for canceling tariffs. Trump tuned in and paused them for 90 days later that afternoon
The banker, whose word is widely regarded, calculated he could use his spot to break through to the president, while warning of a recession
‘I’m taking a calm view, but it could get worse,’ he said during the high-profile sit-down, recommending the president give his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, more time before doubling down.
‘If you want to calm down the markets, show progress in those things and let Scott Bessent negotiate. Trade deals are large and complex,’ he said.
He went on to warn of prospective consequences if Trump stayed course, presenting a somewhat grim forecast.
‘They put the tariffs in and it was way beyond what people expected. That will cause a little inflation, slow down growth’ he said on the set of Bartiromo’s program.
‘Whether or not the menu of tariffs causes a recession remains in question, but it will slow down growth,’ Dimon wrote in a letter to shareholders a couple days before.
In doing so, JPMorgan raised its likelihood of a recession from 40 percent to 60 percent – an increase that has since been erased after Trump’s abrupt about-face.
Upon being questioned afterwards, the president admitted to seeing the Mornings With Maria segment in question.
‘I watched Jamie Dimon and Maria Bartiromo’s show this morning, and he was very good,’ he told reporters afterwards. ‘[Dimon] said something has to be done with tariffs and trade. He understood it. He’s very smart and very genius financially.
‘I’m taking a calm view, but it could get worse,’ Dimon said during the high-profile sit-down, where he said another US recession was ‘a likely outcome’
‘He’s done a fantastic job at the bank and he knows that,’ the conservative, a well-known consumer of cable news, The Journal notes, continued. ‘Everybody knows that – anybody that’s even a little bit smart knows it.’
Asked specifically whether Dimon – or anyone else – influenced his decision, Trump deflected, choosing instead to double-down on the tariffs’ importance.
‘It wasn’t sustainable,’ he said of other countries’ tariffs currently in place, which he said are set to soon change after some ’75’ countries came forward to negotiate.
‘What was happening. Somebody had to pull the trigger.’ Trump said, talking himself up while panning previous presidents. ‘I was willing to pull the trigger. This should have been done long ago.’
Later in the day, Trump was asked essentially the same question again, concerning how he came to the decision – one that even his top trade official appeared unaware of during a hearing on Capitol Hill as the news came out.
This time, Trump did not mention the Dimon interview, but rather that he had been mulling a pause for the past few days, saying, I think it probably came together early this morning, fairly early this morning. Just wrote it up.
‘We didn’t have the use of, have access to lawyers… we just wrote it, we wrote it up from our hearts,’ he joked, looking back at other officials behind him.
‘It was written as something that I think was very positive for the world and for us. And we don’t want to hurt countries that don’t need to be hurt. And they all want to negotiate.’
As this was all happening, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was testifying about the tariffs before the House Ways and Means Committee. He apparently learned of the pivot during hearing, leading Rep. Steven Horsford to become irate.
‘This is amateur hour,’ he said, after Trump announced the change in plans on Truth Social. ‘It needs to stop,’ he continued. ‘How are you in charge of [trade] negotiations if the president is tweeting about this from wherever the hell he is?’
Bessent, meanwhile, was not present – pulling out the event last-minute for a meeting with Trump, members of the caucus said. His deputy stood in his place.
He and other White House officials went on to present Trump’s change-of-heart as a trade-talk strategy.
Developing story, check back for updates…
