Breaking:Trump says he’s ready to talk as new stock market losses fuel tariff chaos.read more.

The big question as global stock sell-offs point to another week of plunging markets in the US is how much pain President Donald Trump is prepared to inflict to test his tariff theories.

Trump said Sunday evening that he’s “open to talking” to world leaders about new deals as he put a brave face on the chaos unleashed by his trade wars after a weekend playing golf at his exclusive Florida properties. Trump also claimed that he’d spoken to “many countries” and that despite fury abroad over his “Liberation Day” trade attacks, “They’re being very nice.”

But as he flew back to Washington aboard Air Force One, stocks tumbled at the opening in Tokyo and US futures suggested more huge losses are likely on Wall Street on Monday.

What’s going to happen with the market? I can’t tell you, but I can tell you, our country has gotten a lot stronger, and eventually it’ll be a country like no other,” Trump said.

With markets closed over the weekend after days of pummeling losses, the administration had the chance to take stock. But there is no fresh clarity over its strategy as the political stakes become more fraught.

Top officials sent conflicting signals Sunday over whether Trump sees the economic warfare he unleashed last week as a lever for near-term dealmaking — or whether he’s serious about a bid to remake the world economy that could take years.

The confusion came against a backdrop of rising discomfort among some Republican lawmakers about the trade onslaught and as massive crowds across the country held anti-Trump protests in the largest show of dissent of his second term

The president and his senior aides also seem oblivious to anxiety in the country over the possibility his policies could cause a recession — or feel so sure in their views they don’t really have to care. Trump posted a video of himself teeing off in Florida, and the White House put out a bizarre statement noting his win in a golf club championship match.

It was a reminder that Trump and his millionaire and billionaire friends don’t share the worries of regular American families, who are concerned about their retirement savings and how they’ll afford groceries and cars when tariffs hike prices. While the president insists his plans for tax cuts will leave everyone more prosperous, he’s still taking a gamble after winning a second term in part because voters felt the Biden administration did a poor job tackling inflation.

The rationale for Trump’s tariffs on 185 nations and territories is that the rest of the world has spent decades ripping off America and that the most aggressive protectionism in decades will return jobs to hurting US industrial heartlands.

It’s true that the profits of globalization — which saw many US jobs disappear overseas — have not been equally shared. But the United States is the richest, most powerful nation in history, and profited most from the free trading system Trump seeks to destroy.