Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen weighed in on the Trump administration's trade war Friday evening, blasting President Trump's latest roll-out of import taxes on nearly all trading partners.
"This is the worst self-inflicted policy wound I've ever seen in my career inflicted on our economy," she told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an interview. "The Trump tariff plans are doing immense damage to our economy."
"You can see that in the stock market, in the impact of these tariffs are expected to have on American households," she added.
When asked how Wall Street and the economy could recover amid a volatile market sparked by Trump's tariffs — which the president put on a 90-day hold amid negotiations, with the exception of China — Yellen didn't appear optimistic. She specifically pointed to anxieties rising around bonds as an example.
"Well, I think that could take a long time to rebuild. Dollar assets have long been regarded as the safest in the world, especially U.S. treasury bonds and bills," Yellen, "And what we saw this week was a sharp increase. One of the biggest increases on record over the space of a week in long term Treasury yields — almost 50 basis points. And at the same time a decline in the value of the dollar," Yellen, who previously served as chair of the Federal Reserve, explained. "They form the core of the whole global financial system."
"And what we saw this week was a sharp increase. One of the biggest increases on record over the space of a week in long term Treasury yields — almost 50 basis points. And at the same time a decline in the value of the dollar," she added.
The Biden-era Treasury chief called it an "unusual pattern," noting that "in chaotic times, usually Treasury yields fall. The Treasury bonds are a safe haven. People buy them. That's not what's happening now."
Her comments come just over a week after the Trump administration imposed a 10 percent baseline tariff on nearly all foreign imports. The president also slapped dozens of nations with higher reciprocal taxes, though most fall under the
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