Since boldly declaring at the outset of last month that “trade wars are good” and “easy to win,” Donald Trump has undergone something of a rude awakening. Not only have his own advisers begged to differ, but China’s unexpectedly severe response to his steel and aluminum tariffs, combined with a series of additional Trumpian antics have sunk the equities market to levels not seen since 1929. They continued their dive on Wednesday morning, at which point the president decided to intervene on Twitter. But rather than inject a note of pseudo-rationality into proceedings, or promise to negotiate with Beijing over the terms of the tariffs—the two countries have six weeks to work things out before the measures are actually put in place—Trump offered a new rationalization:

How’d the markets react to that little pep talk? Not so well! The Dow Jones plunged more than 350 points, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite falling 1.2 percent each.

Though anyone outside the Oval Office knew retaliatory measures from Beijing were likely, the news that China will slap an additional 25 percent tariff on $50 billion of U.S. imports, including automobiles, soybeans, aircraft, and chemicals, came as something of a surprise to investors. “China’s response was tougher than what the market was expecting—investors didn’t foresee the country levying additional tariffs on sensitive and important products such as soybeans and airplanes,” Scotiabank strategist Gao Qi told Bloomberg. “Investors believe a trade war will hurt both countries and their economies eventually.” Furthermore, the products being targeted just happen to hail from states that one would expect the G.O.P. to rely on in the midterms, not that logic or facts have ever held much sway over the current president:

For his part, Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross thinks everyone needs to just calm down and refrain from getting their knickers in a twist. China’s tariffs, he said during an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, represent “about three-tenths of a percent of our G.D.P. So, it’s hardly a life-threatening activity.” He added that China’s response “should not surprise anyone,” and that “I’m frankly a little surprised that Wall Street was so surprised by it.”

He likewise echoed Trump’s Twitter claim that the “foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S.” are at fault for any sort of economic downturn. “Several presidents got us into this deficit,” Ross said. “This is the president who is going to get us out of it.” He added that Trump is a “lifelong dealmaker” and this whole trade-war thing is not the “first controversy he’s gone into . . . this is not World War III.”

Incidentally, Trump reportedly has no events on his schedule until dinner, giving him ample time to watch cable-news coverage of the tariffs and respond in real time via tweet. In other words, today should be a fun test of just how low the market can go.