President Trump on Sunday defended his sweeping tariffs amid plunging markets, saying he did not “want anything to go down.”

“When you look at the trade deficit we have with certain countries, with China it’s a trillion dollars,” Trump told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One as he returned from Florida to Washington, D.C. on Sunday evening.

“And we have to solve our trade deficit with China…. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year we lose with China.  And unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal,” Trump continued. 

“This is not sustainable,” he said of U.S. trade deficits.

“The United States can’t lose $1.9 trillion on trade. We can’t do that and also spend a lot of money on NATO in order to protect European nations, we cover them with military and we lose money on trade. The whole thing is crazy, and I got elected on that basis. We explained it. You know, the American people understand it a lot better than the media, but the media understands it, and much of the media writes correctly about it.”

Markets fell sharply on Thursday and Friday after Trump announced Wednesday that tariffs would be imposed on virtually every country exporting to the United States. Futures are also down more than 1,300 points on the Dow Jones Sunday night, as of 8:18 p.m., ahead of Monday morning’s opening.

Asked if he had a threshold for how far markets would have to fall, Trump responded sharply.

“I think your question is so stupid. I don’t want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to  take medicine to fix something,” he said.

Trump argues that other countries for years have taken advantage of the U.S. when it comes to trade policy, hurting U.S. workers and manufacturers.

While at times his administration has suggested that countries could negotiate to win better deals and lower their tariffs, some officials have also signaled the tariffs could be in place for some time.

Trump said Saturday on his Truth Social platform that the tariffs will result in an “economic revolution.”

“We have been the dumb and helpless ‘whipping post,’ but not any longer,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before. Already, more than FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS OF INVESTMENT, and rising fast!”

Sunday on Air Force One, Trump mostly shrugged off the markets.

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

He also said he’d heard from a number of trading partners.

“I spoke to a lot of Europeans, Asians, all over the world. They’re dying to make a deal,“ Trump said.

The president has seen some allies criticize his new tariffs.

Billionaire hedge fund investor Bill Ackman in a weekend post on X warned the tariffs could cause a recession and hurt Trump voters disproportionately.

Trump on Air Force One said he’d talked to “the biggest” tech leaders in the world.

“They said we don’t blame you,” he added.

“Yeah, I talk to the biggest in the world. I talk to the biggest of them all – many of them. … I’ve talked to four or five that are considered the biggest,” he said, though he would not release names without talking to those he’d spoken with.  

Asked if he wants zero tariffs with Europe like his ally, the tech mogul Elon Musk, has advocated, Trump said: “Europe has made a fortune off us. … Europe has treated us very very badly.”

“They are coming to the table. They want to talk but there’s no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis.”