Citadel founder Ken Griffin said President Donald Trump’s trade war has derailed business leaders’ plans to spend the next four years focusing on growth.
Chief executive officers had been looking forward to a long stint of not having to navigate new regulations, Griffin said Wednesday at the Semafor World Economy Summit.
“Unfortunately, the trade war, which has devolved into a nonsensical place, means we’re spending time thinking about supply chains,” Griffin said in an interview that assessed Trump’s term as “mixed” so far.
Griffin had previously criticized Trump’s tariffs even though he said he agrees with the president’s assessment of the issues that the US faces. On Wednesday, Griffin said Trump’s immigration policies and efforts to cut government waste were huge wins for the administration.
“President Trump has an incredibly good sense of where problems lie,” Griffin said. “But we’re moving too quickly, we’re moving too haphazardly, and we’re breaking a lot of glass in trying to solve some very real problems.”
The president’s harsher-than-expected global tariffs, some of which he paused, have rattled various market sectors, as have his comments threatening the Federal Reserve’s independence. The S&P 500 tumbled 10% this year through Tuesday, though it rallied Wednesday after Trump said he didn’t plan to fire Fed Chair Jay Powell.
Griffin, 56, warned that the US is putting its brand “at risk” and said that Trump’s tariffs could be counterproductive. Those levies include a 10% baseline tariff for most countries and 25% on steel and aluminum imports.
“People are not going to race to build manufacturing in America,” Griffin said of the tariffs. “With the policy volatility, you actually undermine the very goal you’re trying to achieve.”
