The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average rebounded Friday after President Trump backed down from his threat to veto a $1.3 trillion spending bill, a move that would have risked another U.S. government shutdown.
The Dow Jones index rose 0.3 percent, while the S&P 500 added 0.1 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq pared earlier declines. None of the moves came close to wiping out 2 percent slides on Thursday after Trump announced tariffs of 25 percent on some Chinese imports.
The spending bill, which Trump criticized for not including sufficient funding for a wall he wants along the southwestern U.S. border or addressing the plight of undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children, passed early Friday morning. Calling it “ridiculous,” Trump said he wouldn’t sign another similar bill even though he praised its boosting of defense spending.
“There’s a lot of things I’m unhappy about in this bill, a lot of things we shouldn’t have had in this bill, but things if we want our military, we were forced to have,” he said in a White House news conference.
In a post on Twitter earlier Friday, the president had threatened to block the bill despite assurances from the White House to Republican Congressional leaders that he would sign it.
I am considering a VETO of the Omnibus Spending Bill based on the fact that the 800,000 plus DACA recipients have been totally abandoned by the Democrats (not even mentioned in Bill) and the BORDER WALL, which is desperately needed for our National Defense, is not fully funded.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2018
“I looked very seriously at doing the veto,” he said afterward, “but because of the incredible gains we’ve been able to make for the military, that overrode any of our thinking.”
Trump, who has bragged in the past about the stock market’s advances under his administration, brushed off concerns about declines after he announced tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as plans to impose duties on some Chinese imports.
U.S. indexes have all posted major gains under his administration, he noted, despite the recent drops. The Dow Jones has increased 31 percent since his November 2016 election, while the S&P 500 has risen 23 percent and the Nasdaq has added 38 percent.
“The stock market’s going to be great,” Trump told reporters Friday. “When I came into office, the stock market was from a different planet. It’s way up. China is going to end up treating us fairly.”
