U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a briefing at the National Institutes of Health Vaccine Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S., on Tuesday, March 3, 2020.
Yuri Gripas | Bloomberg | Getty Images
President Donald Trump sought to downplay the plunging price of oil and the global spread of the new coronavirus as markets fell on Monday, saying that falling gas prices were good for consumers and comparing the coronavirus to the common flu.
“Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down!” Trump wrote in one of a series of posts on Twitter. In another, he wrote that the flu killed 37,000 Americans last year, compared to 22 known deaths from COVID-19.
The market slid on Monday amid an all-out oil price war and fears over the global spread of the new coronavirus. The sell-off triggered market “circuit breakers” shortly after trading opened, after the major indexes fell by 7% in less than 15 minutes.
Oil prices were down more than 20% after Saudi Arabia announced major price cuts and production increases. Saudi Arabia’s move came after Russia rejected a proposal by OPEC to cut 1.5 million barrels of production per day.
“Saudi Arabia and Russia are arguing over the price and flow of oil. That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!” Trump wrote in another post.
Monday’s turmoil contributed to several weeks of chaotic market declines spurred by concerns that efforts to contain the flu-like respiratory infection, which emerged late last year in China, will hamper global growth.
Some economists have speculated that declines in the price of oil and historically low rates, including for the popular 30-year fixed mortgage, could boost consumer sentiment in the short-term. But those factors could be overwhelmed by negativity around the spread of coronavirus, they cautioned.
“The question is whether the fear factor attributable to the virus will overwhelm any positive impact from lower gasoline prices and lower mortgage rates,” Edward Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, told CNBC over the weekend.
In posts on Twitter earlier Monday, Trump said Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the government’s coronavirus task force, was doing a great job. Trump also boasted that his administration’s travel restrictions on China, which were announced in January, saved lives.
“The BEST decision made was the toughest of them all – which saved many lives,” Trump wrote in one post. “Our VERY early decision to stop travel to and from certain parts of the world!”
Some of the president’s posts on Monday were more in line with his ordinary preoccupations.
Despite the precipitous market drop, Trump spent some of his morning directing fury at the news media — “So much FAKE NEWS!” — former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, and the Democratic Party, which he accused of attempting to “smear” Biden’s rival Sen. Bernie Sanders.
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