Wall Street starts to speak out against Trump’s tariffs

Now, after a two-day market meltdown last week that erased trillions in value from U.S. stocks, some are speaking out, including those who have been vocal supporters of Trump.

Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge-fund manager behind Pershing Square, called for a 90-day pause in the tariffs to negotiate with other countries, warning that the alternative was “a self-induced, economic nuclear winter."

“We are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital," Ackman wrote in a social-media post on X.

U.S. stock futures tumbled Sunday night when trading reopened, and markets in Asia plunged, setting up Monday to be another bleak day.

Howard Marks, co-chairman of investment firm Oaktree Capital, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We’ve gone from free trade and world trade and globalization to this system, which implies significant restrictions on trade in every direction and a step toward isolation for the United States."

Stan Druckenmiller, the investor and lifelong Republican who was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s boss at George Soros’s hedge fund, sent a rare post on X, making clear his opposition to the administration’s tariff plan: “I do not support tariffs exceeding 10%."

Hedge-fund manager Dan Loeb pointed to Druckenmiller’s and Marks’s comments on his X feed. He said there were conceptual and practical errors in the policy announced last week, adding, “It will be a test of the administration’s judgment versus ideology how they resolve this over the weekend or coming days."

During the first Trump administration, a number of senior financial executives had regular and open conversations with Trump and others, sharing views and advice. Comparable channels and discussions aren’t happening this time around, according to people close to the matter.

Still, some financial executives have shared concerns about the tariffs with senior White House officials including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Vice President JD Vance, Bessent, and National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett, one person familiar with the discussions said. The Trump team was in listening mode for those conversations, the person said.

Those bank CEOs could face pressure to speak out publicly starting this week when they begin reporting quarterly results and investors will see if they issue critiques of their own.

For much of the weekend, traders remained stunned at the extent of the tariffs unveiled by Trump, and by the market’s subsequent reaction.

“Liberation Day was a knock-down, drag-out affair," Goldman Sachs’s Tony Pasquariello, who leads the firm’s hedge-fund coverage team, wrote to clients Saturday morning. “There was a harshness that surprised even the most hawkish people I know."

Some financial executives held out hope that Republicans in Congress would exert pressure on the Trump administration to postpone tariffs on countries that are negotiating with the U.S. to lower tariffs.

Others suggested that it was wrong to blame Trump for the deep losses of investors.

“While the Trump Administration is responsible for wringing the froth out of the market, it was not responsible for putting it in there," argued Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading. “The Trump Administration’s policy approach has been well advertised since prior to the election."

The market could rebound if Trump and his team cut deals with various nations to reduce tariffs and improve terms of trade, some Wall Street analysts argued.

“With nations seeking to cut deals with the Administration…the President is well positioned to start claiming some victories—he just needs to want to seize them," O’Rourke said.

But many in finance were perplexed with indications over the weekend from Trump and others that they didn’t appear eager to reach deals to forestall the coming tariffs—and that some members of the administration didn’t seem especially concerned that stocks are getting hammered.

“We believe that Wall Street and Main Street prosper and suffer together," Ed Yardeni, founder of Yardeni Research, told clients in a note Sunday evening. “The Trump administration disagrees."

Write to Gregory Zuckerman at Gregory.Zuckerman@wsj.com