Trump says US economy is in a 'transition period'
President Donald Trump downplayed fears of a recession in the US in response to his tariffs policies and said the US economy is in a "transition period".
He defended the escalating tariff feud with China, and said US-imposed levies would be lowered eventually.
"At some point I'm going to lower them, because otherwise you can never do business with them, and they want to do business very much," Mr Trump said in an interview with NBC news that aired on Sunday.
He pushed back against rising costs of imports, particularly from China, saying that girls don't need 30 dolls, they could have three or four.
"I don't think a beautiful baby girl that's 11 years old, needs to have 30 dolls, I think they can have 3 or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable, we had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China."
The wide-ranging interview, that at times was combative, was taped on Friday from the President's Mar a Lago estate, where he spent the weekend.
The interview comes after Mr Trump marks 100 days of his second term in office.
Mr Trump won the US election in 2024 on a platform to improve the economy, including reducing the cost of living, and impose stricter immigration policies.
He has imposed tariffs on trade partners and allies, upsetting the global economy. He put a 145 per cent tariff rate on goods coming from China.
Beijing responded with a 84 per cent tariff rate in retaliation.
The President has explained away the levies as measures aimed at ending economic imbalances. He said the policy would enrich the US.
"I think the tariffs are going to be great for us, because it's going to make us rich," he said.
Mr Trump had also campaigned on a promise to quickly end the war in Ukraine.
Last week, his administration signed a minerals deal with Kyiv that will see the US profiting from the extraction of resources in the country, and invested in its reconstruction after the war with Russia ends.
Mr Trump, who has dispatched his envoy Steve Witkoff to speak with Russia's President Vladimir Putin, said "maybe it's not possible" to reach a peace deal that would end the three-year-old war.
In recent weeks, he has publicly expressed frustration with Mr Putin, amid continued strikes on Ukraine, even as talks were ongoing.
"I think we have a very good chance of doing it very quickly," he said.
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