WASHINGTON – Raydario, founder of Hedge Fund Bridgewater Associates, said President Donald Trump “is worried about worse than a recession” if he doesn’t properly handle tariffs and other economic policies.
“We’re at the point of decision making and I think we’re very close to a recession,” Dario told NBC News on Sunday’s Meet the Press. “And if this doesn’t handle it well, I’m worried that it’s worse than the recession.”
Dario’s comments answered a question from moderator Kristen Welker about whether the US could plunge into a recession due to Trump’s tariff policies.
Dario warned that he had spoken at length on social media, “there is a collapse of financial order.”
“We have a big change in the domestic order…and we have a big change in the world order. Those times are very similar to the 1930s,” Dario said. “I’ve studied history, and this happens over and over again.”
Dario called the combination of tariffs, excessive debt, and “the rise in power to challenge existing power” a “very, very disruptive” change.
“How it is treated can produce something much worse than the recession,” he said.
Specifically, Dario has recently warned of unsustainable growth in US debt and creditors such as China, and what he said is holding too much, and that a decline in US manufacturing will lead to reliance on necessary items.
Dario said on Sunday that the situation was “very well managed,” urging members of Congress to pledge to reduce the fiscal deficit by a few percent to 3% of the gross domestic product, a measure of the country’s economic activity.
“If we don’t, we’ll have these other issues as well as the supply and demand for debt, and the result will be worse than a normal recession,” he said.
When asked to detail his fears about the worst-case scenario, Dario said he was worried that “the value of money, internal conflicts that are not as ordinary democratic as we know, that could very well destroy the world economy and even fall into military conflict.”
Dario had previously anticipated the 2008 financial crisis. Bridgewater warned in 2007 that “the risks embedded in the system are extremely high” ahead of the final financial crisis. A few months later, the company said it believes interest rates will rise “until the financial system breaks down,” adding “No one knows how this financial market contagion will occur.” A few months later, the recession began.
In a lengthy post to X last week ahead of Trump’s temporary cuts on drastic tariffs, Dario said while his duties are “a very important development,” people “overlook the very important forces that are driving almost everything, including tariffs.”
“To keep things much bigger and far more important in mind is seeing a classic breakdown of key financial, political and geopolitical orders,” he warned. “This type of breakdown occurs only once in a lifetime, but it has happened many times in history where similar unsustainable conditions were met.”