BlackRock CEO thinks we might already be in a recession #CanadaFinance

As the stock market turbulence prompts fears that the U.S. could soon be in a recession, an investment management firm executive believes we’re already there.

President Donald Trump’s back-and-forth approach to his tariff policy — announcing an across-the-board tax one week and then pausing it the next — has caused the markets to go wild.

In just a week’s span, the market has endured historic drops — after the president unveiled his new “Liberation Day” tariffs — and historic gains — after Trump announced a 90-day pause. But with some levies still in effect and others set to return in a few months, the gains haven’t curbed fears of uncertainty over the future of the U.S. economy.

“I think we’re very close, if not [already] in, a recession now,” BlackRock CEO Larry Fink warned on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday.

Trump has announced that 75 countries have started negotiating regarding the tariffs, but China isn’t one of them. He then imposed an additional levy on China, raising its total tariff to a very hefty 145 percent.

“I think you’re going to see, across the board, a slowdown until there’s more certainty. And we now have a 90-day [pause] on the reciprocal tariffs — that means longer, more elevated uncertainty,” he noted.

Fink warned of the pitfalls in the wake of the release of BlackRock’s first quarterly report of 2025, in which he also highlighted the unpredictability of what’s to come. “Uncertainty and anxiety about the future of markets and the economy are dominating client conversations,” he wrote.

The BlackRock CEO isn’t the only one who is concerned about the negative effects from the uncertainty over Trump’s trade war.

Jon Gray, president of Blackstone Inc., told an audience at a Steers Center for Global Real Estate event Thursday: “The longer you have periods of heightened volatility,” the higher the chance that “something goes awry and that has some sort of domino effect.”

“I still think this is more ‘sell the rip’ than ‘buy the dip,’” in stocks, he remarked.

Renaissance Macro head of economics Neil Dutta told Yahoo Finance on Thursday: “Lots of problems continue. But it is nice to see the President backing off and focusing on China.” Still, he warned: “The issue is prolonged uncertainty.”

Trump’s allies have insisted that there’s nothing to worry about, and that certainty is on the horizon.

“You had the highest rise in stock market history [Wednesday]. Of course there’s gonna be a little pullback,” Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, told CNN Thursday. “It’s just normal retracement after a big day. It’s no big deal.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that he expects after negotiating with other countries, “we will end up in a place of great certainty over the next 90 days.”