Donald Trump seized on volatility in financial markets Monday to amplify his criticisms of U.S. relations with China, and used social media to highlight the populist message that he’s placed at the center of his presidential campaign.
“I’ve been telling everybody for a long time that China’s taking our jobs, they’re taking our money. Be careful, they’ll bring us down,” the businessman and reality TV star said in a video message posted to his Instagram feed. “You have to know what you’re doing. We have nobody that has a clue.”
U.S. markets reeled in early morning trading, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 1,000 points, or roughly 6 percent, before recovering most of that loss in the early afternoon.
Stock markets in the U.S. and all over the world were rattled by fears about growth and financial stability in China, which has seen a massive sell-off in recent days. The Shanghai Composite was down 8.5 percent Monday, the biggest loss since 2007.
Trump pinned the decline in U.S. stock futures in China in a tweet sent before markets opened Monday, charging that the U.S. has allowed China to “dictate the agenda.”
By the early afternoon, however, U.S. stock markets had reversed most of the early morning losses, with the major indices all down by less than a percentage point on the day.
Trump has criticized U.S. trade deals with China and promised to bring back manufacturing jobs from China to the U.S.
He’s only intensified his criticisms of U.S. international relations as China’s growth has come into question and its asset markets have undergone a massive collapse.
