• After the worst selloff on Wall Street since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he was impressed with the market’s ability to handle surging volumes and noted that Wall Street has a history of underestimating President Donald Trump, whose tariff policies are raising fears the economy will be suddenly thrown into a recession.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the market’s ability to handle surging volumes is reassuring and downplayed the massive stock selloff as a short-term reaction.

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that aired Sunday, he also gave no indication that President Donald Trump will back off from this aggressive tariffs and said there doesn’t have to be a recession.

That’s despite Wall Street pricing greater odds of a downturn, with JPMorgan warning tariffs will cause GDP to shrink this year.

“One thing that I can tell you, as the Treasury secretary, what I’ve been very impressed with is the market infrastructure, that we had record volume on Friday. And everything is working very smoothly so the American people, they can take great comfort in that,” Bessent told NBC.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average collapsed 5.5%, losing 2,231 points, the S&P 500 sank 6%, and the Nasdaq crashed 5.8%, sending the tech-heavy index more than 20% below its recent high and putting it in bear market territory.

That followed similar market carnage on Thursday. The two sessions wiped out $6 trillion in market cap and marked the worst selloff since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Bessent said “we get these short-term market reactions from time to time,” and added that Wall Street has consistently underestimated Trump, pointing to an initial stock decline after he unexpectedly won the 2016 election.

“And it turned out he was going to be the most pro-business president in over a century, maybe in the history of the country. And we went on to very high after-inflation returns for the next four years,” Bessent said.

When asked what he would say to Americans who plan to retire and just saw their portfolios take a big hit, he dismissed that as a “false narrative.”

“I think they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations of what’s happening,” Bessent said. “And you know, in fact, most Americans don’t have everything in the market.”

For those with 401(k) accounts, most have 60% of their holdings stocks and 40% in bonds, he explained, adding that such 60/40 accounts are down 5% or 6% on the year.

“If you look day-to-day, week-to-week, it’s very risky. Over the long term, it’s a good investment,” Bessent said.

For those with decades ahead of them until retirement, experts say the best course of action is to take a breath and leave their 401(k) alone.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

About 45 years have passed since a U.S. state last eliminated its income tax on wages and salaries. But with recent actions in Mississippi and Kentucky, two states now are on a path to do so, if their economies keep growing.

The push to zero out the income tax is perhaps the most aggressive example of a tax-cutting trend that swept across states as they rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic with surging revenues and historic surpluses.

But it comes during a time of greater uncertainty for states, as they wait to see whether President Donald Trump’s cost cutting and tariffs lead to a reduction in federal funding for states and a downturn in the overall economy.

Some fiscal analysts also warn the repeal of income taxes could leave states reliant on other levies, such as sales taxes, that disproportionately affect the poor.

Which governments charge income tax?

The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to levy income taxes. It was ratified by states in 1913. Since then, most states have adopted their own income taxes.

Eight states currently charge no personal income tax: Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. A ninth state, Washington, charges no personal income tax on wages and salaries but does tax certain capital gains income over $270,000.

When Alaska repealed its personal income tax in 1980, it did so because state coffers were overflowing with billions of dollars in oil money.

Though income tax eliminations have been proposed elsewhere, they have not been successful.

“It’s a lot easier to go without an individual income tax if you’ve never levied one,” said Katherine Loughead, a senior analyst and research manager at the nonprofit Tax Foundation. “But once you become dependent on that revenue, it is a lot more difficult to phase out or eliminate that tax.”

What is Mississippi doing?

Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves recently signed a law gradually reducing the state’s income tax rate from 4% to 3% by 2030 and setting state revenue growth benchmarks that could trigger additional incremental cuts until the tax is eliminated. The law also reduces the sales tax on groceries and raises the gasoline tax.

If cash reserves are fully funded and revenue triggers are met each year, Mississippi’s income tax could be gone by 2040.

Supporters of an income tax repeal hope it will attract both businesses and residents, elevating the state’s economy to the likes of Florida, Tennessee and Texas. Their theory is that when people pay less in income taxes, they will have more money to spend, thus boosting sales tax collections.

The tax repeal “puts us in a rare class of elite, competitive states,” Reeves said in a statement. He added, “Mississippi has the potential to be a magnet for opportunity, for investment, for talent –- and for families looking to build a better life.”

Mississippi is among the most impoverished states and relies heavily on federal funding. Democratic lawmakers warned the state could face a financial crises if cuts in federal funding come at the same time as state income tax reductions.

The income tax provides “a huge percentage of what the state brings in to fund things like schools and health care and services that everybody relies on,” said Neva Butkus, senior analyst at the nonprofit Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

What has Kentucky done?

A 2022 Kentucky law reduced the state’s income tax rate and set a series of revenue-based triggers that could gradually lower the tax to zero. But unlike in Mississippi, the triggers aren’t automatic. Rather, the Kentucky General Assembly must approve each additional decrease in the tax rate.

That has led to a series of tax-cutting measures, including two new laws this year. One implements the next tax rate reduction from 4% to 3.5% starting in 2026. The second makes it easier to continue cutting the tax rate in the future by allowing smaller incremental reductions if revenue growth isn’t sufficient to trigger a 0.5 percentage point reduction.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear signed the legislation for next year’s tax cut but let the other measure passed by the Republican-led legislature become law without his signature. Beshear called it a “bait-and-switch” bill, contending lawmakers had assured the guardrails for income tax reductions would remain in place while pushing for the 2026 tax cut, then later in the session altered the triggers for future years.

What actions have other states taken?

New Hampshire and Tennessee already did not tax income from wages and salaries, but both states had taxed certain types of income.

In 2021, Tennessee ended an income tax on interest from bonds and stock dividends that had been levied since 1929.

New Hampshire halted its tax on interest and dividends at the start of this year.

Some other states also are pushing to repeal income taxes. The Oklahoma House passed legislation in March that would gradually cut the personal income tax rate to zero if revenue growth benchmarks are met. That bill now is in the Senate.

New Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, also wants to phase out the income tax. The House and Senate have advanced legislation that would take an incremental step by exempting capital gains income from taxes.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Vietnam has offered to remove all tariffs on US imports after Donald Trump announced a 46% levy on the southeast Asian nation, according to an April 5 letter from Vietnam’s communist party.

The offer was made by party chief To Lam in a letter to the US president that was seen by Bloomberg. In the letter, Lam requested that the US not apply any additional tariffs or fees on Vietnamese goods and asked to postpone the implementation of the tariff announced by Trump last week by at least 45 days after April 9.

The letter confirms comments made by Trump on Friday on his Truth Social network, following a call between the two leaders. Vietnam, which has increasingly become a key manufacturing and export alternative to China, was slapped with one of the highest tariff rates worldwide last Wednesday.  

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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