The US economy has shrunk, in its worst performance for three years. On the 101st day of his second presidency, Donald Trump insists his tariffs are not to blame – but the data shows a rush of imports played a part. Watch live below as Trump holds a cabinet meeting at the White House.
Wednesday 30 April 2025 16:55, UK
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We’re starting to get pictures from the cabinet room inside the White House.
You can see “Gulf of America” hats placed around the table in front of every member of Trump’s cabinet…
Donald Trump kicks off the cabinet meeting and is talking about his “massive victory” at the election.
He says “we won on the basis of a great border and getting criminals out of our country”.
But turning to the economy after today’s figures, Trump says “I have to start off by saying that’s Biden, not Trump”.
“We came in and I was very against everything that Biden was doing in terms of the economy, destroying our country in so many ways.”
He claims his administration has brought in investment worth $8trn, and says “there’s never been a number like that”.
Earlier, Trump made similar claims on Truth Social (see 2.17pm post).
The US had an economy that bucked the global trends under Biden, by growing when others were not – albeit with inflation problems that hurt the Democrats at the election last year.
And as we’ve been reporting, the economic forecasts today all suggest Trump’s tariffs have had a negative impact – including by encouraging a rush of imports.
While we wait for the cabinet meeting to get under way, we’ve just heard from the White House after the US economy shrank 0.3% from January to March.
Donald Trump’s press secretary has said “it’s no surprise the leftovers of Biden’s economic disaster have been a drag on economic growth” – the US president also put the blame with Biden earlier (see 2.17pm post).
“The underlying numbers tell the real story of the strong momentum president Trump is delivering,” Karoline Leavitt said.
“Robust core GDP, the highest gross domestic investment in four years, job growth, and trillions of dollars in new investments secured by President Trump are fuelling an economic boom and setting the stage for unprecedented growth as President Trump ushers in the new Golden Age.”
We’re expecting Donald Trump to hold a US cabinet meeting at the White House in the next few moments.
A source has told our US network partner NBC News that Elon Musk will also be in attendance – that comes after Trump’s chief of staff said Musk was no longer working from the White House.
You can watch along in the stream at the top of this live page. We’ll also be providing live text updates.
More on the US economy now – which shrank by 0.3% in the January to March period.
We reported earlier how Donald Trump’s tariff policies were having the opposite effect to what he wanted, so far at least – as they triggered a rush of American imports to beat price increases, worsening the trade deficit he hates.
Trump also campaigned last year to reduce inflation for Americans – with many saying this was a key factor in his victory.
But as with the trade deficit, Trump’s own decisions may be working against him on prices.
Inflation was easing before tariffs hit
Wednesday’s report from the US Commerce Department (see our earlier posts on the US economy shrinking) showed that consumer prices rose just 2.3% in March from a year earlier, down from 2.5% in February.
Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.6% compared with a year ago, below February’s 2.8%.
Economists track core prices because they typically provide a better indication of where inflation is heading.
Temporary respite?
The slowdown in price rises could be temporary, though, with economists forecasting that inflation could reverse its recent decline and reach 3% or higher by the end of this year.
More than 40,000 people have signed a petition calling for Donald Trump to be barred from addressing the UK parliament on his state visit.
The US president appeared delighted back in February when Sir Keir Starmer presented him with an invitation from the King to an unprecedented second state visit.
But just one week after the petition was launched, 43,000 people have backed it.
Watch: Starmer hands Trump the invitation from the King back in February
“President Trump has shown a consistent disregard for democratic values,” Corin Dalby, the campaigner behind the Change.org petition, has said.
“He has made troubling remarks about the UK and its institutions, and is unable to clearly condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine – which all UK political parties have strongly opposed.
“The UK parliament should not provide a platform to a figure whose actions and words are so at odds with the principles we hold dear.”
It’s worth noting that Trump didn’t address parliament during his last state visit in 2019, with then-speaker John Bercow saying he would oppose such a move.
The new petition calls on current speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle and his counterpart in the Lords, Lord McFall, to adopt the same stance.
There are warnings Americans could start seeing shortages in a matter of weeks because of Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“It’s likely to be concentrated in categories where the US is heavily dependent on Chinese manufacturing and there aren’t a lot of alternatives,” Judah Levine, director of freight platform Freightos, said.
He warned that furniture, baby products and plastic goods, including toys, could be among the items hit the most.
But that impact is already being felt, with the chief executive of toymaker Basic Fun saying he paused shipments following Trump’s tariff plan.
Jay Foreman halted shipments of Tonka Trucks, Care Bears and other toys from China after Trump’s announcement at the start of the month.
“Customers will find Basic Fun toys in stores for a month or two but very quickly we will be out of stock and stock product will disappear from store shelves,” he said.
The knock-on effect of Trump’s tariff announcement is also being felt in the games industry.
Kevin Brusky, who owns small tabletop game publisher APE Games, said he has around 7,000 copies of three different games sitting in a warehouse in China.
He explained that the tariff bill of about $25,000 would wipe out his profit, and he has resorted to launching a Kickstarter campaign to help pay for the cost of the duties.
A recap now of Donald Trump’s interview, broadcast yesterday on ABC, during what was the 100th day of his second term in the White House.
The interview covered a range of other topics, with some key excerpts summarised here:
‘Would hate to think’ people thought he was authoritarian
The president was questioned about his unprecedented use of executive powers, which many critics have said are being deployed to avoid the democratic processes enshrined in the US constitution.
“What do you say to people who are concerned you are taking, seizing too much power and becoming an authoritarian president like we haven’t had before?” interview Terry Moran asked.
“No, I would hate them to think that,” Trump replied.
“I’m doing one thing: I’m making America great again. We have a country that was failing. We have a country that was laughed at all over the world. We had a leader that was grossly incompetent. He should have never been there.”
Admits Putin may be ‘tapping’ him along
Trump had said in a social media post over the weekend that he was unhappy with Russia’s continuing bombardment of Ukraine – saying “there was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days” and that “it makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently”.
Asked about the notion that the Russian president was “tapping” him along, Trump told Moran: “It’s possible.
“Yeah, that’s possible. Sure. He could be tapping me along a little bit. I would say that he would like to stop the war.”
“You believe that?” Moran interjected.
“If… if it weren’t for me, I think he’d want to take over the whole country, personally,” Trump said.
“I always felt… so when I left, there wasn’t even a chance that this would happen. When Biden got involved, I won’t say whether or not he handled it properly, but obviously it wasn’t good, because the war started.”
Asked if he believed Putin wants peace, Trump said: “I think he does, yes.”
The president continued: “I think Putin wanted all of Ukraine,” repeating his claim that Putin invaded because Biden was in office, and saying: “I think if I didn’t win the election, he would have gotten all of Ukraine.”
“And because of me, I do believe that… he’s willing to stop the fighting,” he added.
Declines to say he has 100% confidence in Hegseth
Asked about defence secretary Peter Hegseth, who has faced criticism since his appointment, Trump said he was “a talented guy” who is going to be “a very good defence – hopefully a great defence secretary.”
But when pressed on whether he had 100% confidence in Hegseth, the president said: “I don’t have a 100% confidence in anything, OK? Anything. Do I have a 100%? It’s a stupid question.”
While Donald Trump has claimed the shrinking US economy is not down to his tariffs, workers at American ports have expressed their concerns.
The director of the Port of Los Angeles warned last week that arrivals into the port will fall drastically within two weeks.
Gene Seroka said arrivals will “drop by 35% as essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers has ceased”.
He added that cargo from South East Asia “is much softer than normal with tariffs now in place”.
Meanwhile, the founder of a company working on worldwide cargo shipments has said ocean container bookings from China to the US have dropped 60% after Trump’s tariffs announcement earlier this month.
Ryan Petersen, founder of Flexport, said ocean carriers have reduced their capacity by cancelling 25% of their sailings.
We’ve just had this response from Donald Trump, who has taken to Truth Social.
He puts the blame with Joe Biden, saying it’s “Biden’s stock market, not Trump’s”.
As we’ve been reporting, the first US economic growth figures covering Trump 2.0 have been published, showing the economy shrank at an annualised rate of 0.3% between January and March.
The data showed the main culprit was a surge in imports to beat trade tariffs, which have been on the rise since Trump won the presidential election.
Our Business Live presenter Darren McCaffrey has explained that most economists are now “effectively expecting a recession this year” in the US, adding “that is not good news for Trump”.
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Trump latest: US economy shrinks in worst performance for three years – but president insists it's not because of tariffs – Sky News
