Bill Ackman’s public campaign to slow down the rollout of President Trump’s tariffs continued Tuesday as the billionaire again took to social media to advocate for a pause.
The hedge fund manager who runs Pershing Square Holdings (PSHZF) and backed Trump during the 2024 campaign said he was "totally supportive" of using tariffs to eliminate unfair trading practices and bring more manufacturing to the US.
But he asked for a "30, 60, or 90-day pause before the tariffs are implemented tomorrow to enable negotiations to be completed without a major global economic disruption that will harm the most vulnerable companies and citizens of our country."
Trump thus far is not showing signs of listening, at least when it comes to China. The White House confirmed that President Trump will follow through on a threat to add a 50% tariff on Chinese goods, in addition to 34% reciprocal tariffs, raising the overall tariff rate on Chinese goods to 104%.
A broader negotiation push is taking shape before new comprehensive US duties across 185 countries go into effect on Wednesday.
"China also wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to get it started," Trump wrote on social media Tuesday. "We are waiting for their call."
No Wall Street billionaire has been more public with his views on Trump’s tariffs than Ackman, who this past Sunday urged caution in a series of posts on X. He called the April 9 launch of "reciprocal" tariffs a "mistake," asked for a 90-day pause, and warned of "a self-induced, economic nuclear winter."
The comments were notable because of how optimistic Ackman was in 2024 as Trump was elected to his second term. Appearing on CNBC as Trump visited the New York Stock Exchange in December, Ackman predicted "the most pro-growth, pro-business, pro-American" administration in his adult lifetime.
Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square, in 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo ·REUTERS / Reuters
Several other billionaires this week offered warnings of their own as the magnitude of what Trump proposed became apparent, with heightened odds of a recession.
BlackRock (BLK) CEO Larry Fink on Monday said stocks could go down another 20% and that "most CEOs I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now."
Citadel founder Ken Griffin said on Monday that the tariffs are a “huge policy mistake.”
Some have even targeted Trump’s aides in their remarks. Home Depot founder Ken Langone, a big GOP donor, told the Financial Times that the president had been “poorly advised by his advisers about this trade situation.”
Ackman also had some pointed criticisms of those around Trump before pulling those comments back.
He called out US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, alleging in a post that because Lutnick’s firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, is more heavily invested in bonds, Lutnick carries an “irreconcilable conflict of interest” and profits when “our economy implodes.”
But Ackman pulled back on that personal jab the following morning. “It was unfair of me to lash out at Howard Lutnick. I don’t think he is pursuing his self interest," he said in another post.
“I am just frustrated watching what I believe to be a major policy error occur,” he added in the same post.
Kevin Hassett, the director of Trump's National Economic Council, had something to say about Ackman in a Fox News interview Monday: "I would urge everyone, especially Bill, to ease off the rhetoric a little bit."
David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance.
