Jamie Dimon Changes Tune On Trump’s Tariff Policies: ‘They’re an Economic Weapon’

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that he can now see some upside to President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, which he strongly criticized in the past.

Ross Sorkin spoke to Dimon at the World Economic Summit in Davos and noted that one of his executives spoke on stage and said the bank has a “‘war room’ that’s looking at each of these executive orders as they come in, trying to assess what they mean for the bank and I imagine for your clients.”

“Yeah. So, I mean, ‘war room’ may be a bad word, but we always, this is a real-time full thing analyzing for clients, for communities, for a bank. And we get a million questions, stuff like that,” Dimon replied before turning to tariffs.

“Look, I look at tariffs. They are an economic tool. That’s it. They’re an economic weapon. You know, depending how you use it and why you use it and stuff like that. And, you know, people argue is it inflationary? Non-inflationary?” he continued, adding:

I would put in perspective if it’s a little inflationary, but it’s good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it. National security trumps a little bit more inflation. But I think it really the question is how they get used. Can they be used to bring people to the table? Yes. Is there some unfair trade? Yes. Is there some state-owned subsidies? Yes. You know, does the president use it that way and his team? Yeah.

In the past Dimon, had warned tariffs have “unpredictable outcomes, you hurt your allies maybe more than you hurt anyone else, people tend to retaliate, you can incite nationalism in countries.” In the same June 2018 interview he added they “can create these potential negative outcomes.”

The Washington Post’s JM Reiger resurfaced some old interviews of Dimon during Trump’s first term calling Trump’s tariffs a “pandora’s box” and arguing that they could slow economic growth.

Watch the clip above via CNBC.

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