The Wall Street bosses who aren't hitting the panic button on Trump policies despite new worries
March 13, 2025
Some of the biggest bosses on Wall Street aren't hitting the panic button on President Trump's policies this week despite the
recent gyration in markets
, even as they acknowledge some new concerns from the business world.
Goldman Sachs (
GS
) CEO David Solomon
said Wednesday
, "I think the business community understands what the president is trying to do with tariffs," even if executives do want "lower tariffs everywhere."
BlackRock (
BLK
) CEO Larry Fink said Wednesday that while he does hear from CEOs that "the economy is weakening as we speak," he predicts that "if we are able to unlock private capital ... that will restart and rekindle the next wave of a bull market."
Wall Street certainly has a lot riding on Trump 2.0. At the beginning of the year, bankers were wildly optimistic that the Trump administration’s pro-growth agenda and deregulatory stance would unleash the market’s animal spirits and spur a flurry of US deals.
But the uncertainty surrounding the administration's trade policies is roiling markets and raising new concerns about the direction of the US economy and inflation.
That is
making it more challenging
for bankers and executives to know how trade changes could affect their supply chains or if they should pull the trigger on a public listing or a merger.
At the beginning of this week, Goldman Sachs (
GS
) became the first major Wall Street firm
to lower its year-end price target for the S&P 500
(
^GSPC
), after the major index tumbled into near-correction territory and the firm reduced its outlook for GDP.
Though less bullish than the major bank initially expected,
the new forecast is still optimistic
— it's 11% higher than the index’s all-time high set in February.
Solomon said Wednesday on Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria" that he still expects a pickup in certain deals this year.
"The level of uncertainty is a little bit higher, and that has kept some possible transactions on the sidelines, but the overall level of dialogue, as people are thinking strategically about where they want to drive their businesses, is certainly increasing."
"There is potential, especially if we got more specific actions on the regulatory front, to unleash more animal spirits," he added.
Trump did make an effort this week to speak directly to Solomon and some of the other top CEOs at a meeting of the Business Roundtable in Washington, D.C.
"There's a renewed spirit," the president told the executives, adding that "the tariffs are going to be throwing off a lot of money to this country."
During a portion of the meeting closed to the press, Trump laid out other parts of his agenda — including extending the corporate tax cuts, speeding up approvals on environmental projects, and bringing more jobs and plants back to the US, according to a person familiar with the remarks.
The next day, one attendee, JPMorgan Chase (
JPM
) CEO Jamie Dimon, downplayed the effect tariffs thus far may be having on consumer sentiment.
"But," he added, in a nod to some unease in the business world, "I do think companies might. Uncertainty is not a good thing."
Since Trump took office, Dimon has, in some measure, applauded the Trump administration's efforts to cut down on Washington, D.C.'s bureaucracy and publicly rebuked tariff worries without delivering an outright judgment on whether the cost-cutting efforts or trade policies have gone too far.
Days into Trump's second term, Dimon said of tariffs, "If it's a little inflationary, but it's good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it,"
while speaking with CNBC
at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He made similar points on March 7
during a talk at Stanford University
, calling the current impact of tariffs "very modestly inflationary" and said the effect on that part of the economic picture was being "blown out of proportion."
However, he acknowledged scenarios where the impact could be bigger. "Now, if you put 25% tariffs on all imports, okay, that's a lot more. That could be, in my viewpoint, recessionary and inflationary," Dimon added.
It came last week when a BlackRock-led coalition struck a $22.8 billion deal with Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison that included taking control of two ports located on either end of the Panama Canal.
The move gave Trump what he asked for on his first day in office — a larger American presence in a crucial shipping lane where he had alleged Chinese interference.
Fink himself cleared the deal with Trump and other White House officials, according to Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.
This week, Fink offered optimism even amid some uncertainty. "The world economies, over a long cycle, are going to be fine," Fink said Monday at an event in Houston.
On Tuesday he told CNN: "Could we have one quarter or two quarters of a flattening of our economy as we try to reset the economy? Absolutely."
But, he added, Trump's policies, including tariffs, "can be very productive for the United States" in the long run. As for market losses this week, he said "there’s nothing wrong with a market pullback."
"I look at that as a buying opportunity because I'm very bullish on America."
David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance.
