Andrew Ross Sorkin Warns That Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Will Be ‘Just the Beginning’ for Turbulent Stock Market

Andrew Ross Sorkin warned that President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” will likely only mark “the beginning” of turbulent and uncertain times for the U.S. stock market.

Trump has repeatedly referred to April 2 as “Liberation Day,” which will mark the start of a number of steep tariffs on imports from other countries. Squawk Box co-anchor Sorkin told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Tuesday’s Morning Joe that the market is already not responding well to a potential tariffs war.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq had their worst quarter since 2022 this week as “Liberation Day” grows closer.

“I think that whatever numbers we get tomorrow are just the beginning of a much longer story,” Sorkin said.

He pointed to European Union President Ursula Von Der Leyen’s warning that “all instruments are on the table” to “retaliate” against the U.S. as just one factor to be concerned about. The EU leader has said there is a “strong plan to retaliate” against tariffs imposed by Trump.

Sorkin acknowledged the tariff fighting could lead to a “grand negotiation,” but other political leaders will be facing their own internal pressures and dealing with them “country by country” will likely lead to a long process.

“It’s going to be country by country. You may have blocs like the EU do it, but that’s the complicated part. So this idea that uncertainty somehow becomes certain is not the case,” he said. “It actually creates even more uncertainty over time, until maybe you get to a place where actually there is some agreement. And look, maybe that could happen, but it’s going to be a period of time that I just can’t imagine stops.”

Check out the exchange below:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: So, Andrew, Liberation Day, what’s it looking like? How’s the market responding?

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Not well. Look, I think that whatever numbers we get tomorrow are just the beginning of a much longer story. So the idea that there’s going to be some certainty tomorrow is almost impossible to believe, in part because of just the video you played, which is to say that every country around the world is going to have its own discussion about, okay, what do we do about this? And are there going to be retaliatory tariffs? And once you get into that debate, then there’s going to be a question mark about if they go up, does the U.S. go up? And does this sort of escalate or does it turn into some kind of grand negotiation? But it’s going to be country by country. You may have blocs like the E.U. do it, but that’s the complicated part. So this idea that uncertainty somehow becomes certain is not the case. It actually creates even more uncertainty over time, until maybe you get to a place where actually there is some agreement. And look, maybe that could happen, but it’s going to be a period of time that I just can’t imagine stops. Because, by the way, the political calculation, each of these countries, they’re going to put on their own politicians to say, “you know, you can’t just sit here and take it. You got to do something else.”

SCARBOROUGH: Well, and Europe’s stock markets are outperforming ours now, right?

SORKIN: Well, that is true, in large part because I think there’s a view that the U.S. market has sort of gone as far as it’s going to go. And Europe has been unloved as a stock market. Whether that actually is a great investment right now, I don’t know. But I will say there are a lot of analysts and folks in Wall Street who are now talking about, maybe you need to actually start investing in Europe.

Watch above via MSNBC.