More than 50 countries have contacted White House to start trade talks, Trump adviser says

WASHINGTON - More than 50 countries have reached out to the White House to begin trade talks, a top economic adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday as U.S. officials sought to defend sweeping new tariffs that have unleashed global turmoil.

During an interview on ABC News' 'This Week,' U.S. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett denied that the tariffs were part of a strategy by Trump to crash financial markets to pressure the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.

He said there were would be no "political coercion" of the central bank. In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump shared a video that suggested his tariffs aimed to hammer the stock market on purpose in a bid to force lower interest rates.

In a separate interview on NBC News's Meet the Press, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed the stock market drop and said there was "no reason" to anticipate a recession based on the tariffs.

Trump jolted economies around the world after he announced broad tariffs on U.S. imports on Wednesday, triggering retaliatory levies from China and sparking fears of a globe trade war and recession.

On Sunday morning talk shows, top Trump officials sought to portray the tariffs as a savvy repositioning of the U.S. in the global trade order and the economic disruptions as a short-term fallout.

U.S. stocks have tumbled by around 10% in the two days since Trump announced a new global tariff regime that was more aggressive than analysts and investors had been anticipating.

It is a drop that market analysts and large investors have blamed on Trump's aggressive push on tariffs, which most economists and the head of the U.S. Federal Reserve believe risk stoking inflation and damaging economic growth.

Tariff-stunned markets face another week of potential tariff turmoil, with fallout from Trump's sweeping import levies keeping investors on edge after the worst week for U.S. stocks since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis five years ago.

Hassett told ABC News' 'This Week' that Trump's tariffs had so far driven "more than 50" countries to contact the White House to begin trade talks.

Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te on Sunday offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the U.S., pledging to remove trade barriers rather than imposing reciprocal measures and saying Taiwanese companies will raise their U.S. investments.

Unlike other economists, Hassett said he did not expect a big hit to consumers because exporters were likely to lower prices.

Bessent told NBC News he did not anticipate a recession based on the tariffs, citing stronger-than-anticipated U.S. jobs growth.

"We could see from the jobs number on Friday, that was well above expectations, that we are moving forward, so I see no reason that we have to price in a recession," Bessent said.