Investing.com -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has attributed the recent stock market decline to the unexpected emergence of China’s DeepSeek artificial intelligence tool earlier this year, rather than President Donald Trump’s economic policies. In an interview released on Friday, Bessent dismissed the idea that the market downturn was solely a result of the President’s strategies.

Bessent, who formerly managed a hedge fund, asserted that the market decline commenced with the announcement of DeepSeek by the Chinese. He suggested that the market issues were more related to the ’Magnificent 7’, referring to the seven high-performing tech stocks that previously propelled the market upward, rather than being a MAGA (Make America Great Again) problem.

This statement comes as U.S. stocks have seen a drop of approximately 10% in the two days following Trump’s announcement of a more aggressive global tariff regime than what analysts and investors had initially expected.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.