President Donald Trump on Wednesday acknowledged that his trade war with China has harmed the economy, as he told reporters that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be in a much stronger position were it not for his tariffs on Chinese goods.
"Let me tell you, if I wanted to do nothing with China, our stock market, our stock market would be 10,000 points higher than it is right now but somebody had to do this," the president told reporters, according to Bloomberg. "It was out of control and they were out of control."
Trump went on to express optimism that China wanted to make a trade deal with him but also seemed to indicate that he'd be just as happy to let the trade war continue.
"We’ll see what happens, if they want to make a deal, they’ll make a deal," he said. "If they don’t want to make a deal, that’s fine."
Watch the video below.