Trump, asked about markets, says sometimes you have to 'take medicine'

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday said that sometimes you have to take medicine when asked about falling markets, adding that he was not intentionally engineering a market selloff.

"I don't want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something," Trump told reporters about Air Force One regarding the economic fallout from his sweeping tariffs.

"We have been treated so badly by other countries because we had stupid leadership that allowed this to happen," he added.

Asian markets were in for a rough start on Monday as Wall Street futures plunged and markets wagered the mounting risk of a U.S. recession could see U.S. rate cuts as early as May.

Trump showed no sign of backing away from his tariff plans.

“What’s going to happen to the markets I can’t tell you. But our country is much stronger," Trump said.

Trump said he would not make a deal with Beijing unless the trade deficit with China is solved.

"Unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal," Trump said.

He added that he has spoken to European and Asian leaders on the tariffs rolled out by his administration, adding "they’re dying to make a deal."

U.S. customs agents began collecting Trump's unilateral 10% tariff on all imports from many countries on Saturday. Higher "reciprocal" tariff rates of 11% to 50% on individual countries are due to take effect on Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. EDT (4:01 a.m. GMT).

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Caitlin Webber, Jarrett Renshaw and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Tom Hogue and Lincoln Feast.)