Expert warns Trump's attacks on markets could lead to 'overnight economic apocalypse'

13 January

A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., January 13, 2026. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Longtime columnist and commentator John Avlon issued a critical warning for Wall Street: ignore President Donald Trump's assault on free markets at your own risk.

Writing for Rolling Stone, Avlon questioned what would happen if a Democratic president started a trade war with U.S. allies while getting humiliated by the Chinese Communist Party. Further, he asked what would unfold if that same Democratic president decided that the U.S. government would take possession of parts of privately held companies.

Avlon made it clear that Wall Street money-movers would rage loudly while Republicans seethed, spouting "Milton Friedman shibboleths about free trade, free people, and fiscal responsibility."

This has already unfolded under Trump, and now his Justice Department is pushing for a grand jury probe into Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell after he repeatedly refused to follow the president's demand to cut interest rates.

Today, the "titans of American industry" are quiet, Avlon's column continued. They've "abandon[ed] long-held free market beliefs and line[d] up to perform ornate acts of supplication to the president. Apparently, if you have an unhinged would-be autocrat in charge of the national economy and so much business is wrapped up in government spending, the right thing to do is kiss his a—— in the public square and say it smells like roses, later claiming that you did it all for the shareholders."

After all, he explained, "It is better for the balance sheet to be in the mad king’s good graces."

Avlon recalled the prosperous 1990s when then-President Bill Clinton because the last U.S. leader to deliver a budget surplus. The far-right alleged he was "an amoral communist." Former President Barack Obama submitted "literally a Heritage Foundation proposal" as a solution for healthcare with individual mandates. He was labeled "a Marxist Manchurian candidate."

The attacks were amplified by donations from billionaires claiming that maintaining free markets motivated their involvement.

Avlon wrote that he has a friend working in the hedge fund industry, who said that the stock market could be used as an informal rating for how old, rich, white men felt about politics. It's clear after the Monday slump and rebound that nothing Trump does can sink the markets.

He further quoted Berkshire Hathaway chair Charlie Munger, who said before he died that in the short run the markets are a voting machine — but like a scale in the long run.

"By this logic, Trump’s efforts to turn the U.S. economy into a low-tax, high-tariff regime with a side-hustle government-run shakedown operation — in which foreign policy is conducted for business and the U.S. government owns a stake in those businesses — will end badly for everyone involved," said Avlon. "That’s because in the long run, the weighing machine will matter — just as in the long run, deficits and debts do matter, even if we should all now understand that Republicans only give a damn about deficits and debt when a Democrat is president."

The real fear is that Trump's actions could result in such a lack of trust in the United States' economic stability that countries stop considering the U.S. dollar as the global "reserve currency." It would "begin an overnight economic apocalypse" in the country, Avlon described.

Still, Wall Street continues operating as if all is normal.

Read the full column here.

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