For days, Ackman’s proposal had been floating around as a symbol of Wall Street’s waning influence — one of many public pleas from an industry unable to steer Trump away from what it saw as a cataclysm for global markets and everyday people. Then the president pivoted.
Wall Street has gotten its way for decades, Scott Bessent argued Wednesday morning, declaring “It’s Main Street’s turn.” Then Wall Street had its best day in 16 years.
Hours after the Treasury secretary’s full-throated defense of Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, the president embraced an idea pushed by billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman: Pause the levies for 90 days, rather than — as Ackman put it — risking a “self-induced, economic nuclear winter.”
