“The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart slammed President Donald Trump‘s tariffs during his monologue on Monday night, likening the administration’s economic policy to the hit South Korean Netflix show, “Squid Game.”
In a segment called “Trade Wars,” Stewart discussed the latest developments in the Trump administration’s economic and trade policy.
“Our economy is in the midst of a beautiful metamorphosis, turning from a simple caterpillar into a dead caterpillar,” Stewart said.
Trump’s tariffs, announced on Wednesday, are slated to go into effect on April 9 and to impact more than 180 countries. The tariffs start at a baseline rate of 10% and will hit both the US’s friends and foes.
During his monologue, Stewart pointed out that Trump had responded to criticism of his tariffs with social media posts urging Americans not to be “weak” or “stupid.”
Those posts included a Truth Social post on Friday, in which Trump wrote in all-caps: “ONLY THE WEAK WILL FAIL!”
“What are you doing? Your economic policy has the same tagline as Season 3 of ‘Squid Game?'” Stewart said on Monday night. “Only the weak shall die in my economy!”
The first two seasons of Netflix’s hit show “Squid Game” followed groups of deeply indebted people in South Korea as they competed in a series of deadly games to win a life-changing sum of cash. The fictional show has no single tagline but has become interchangeable with the topics of debt, financial crises, and economic despair.
The series’ third season is set to air on June 27. Netflix ran the tagline “Prepare for the final game” on promotional posters.
“And it didn’t have to happen like this,” Stewart added of Trump’s tariffs. “Trump had so many options to shape the world economy into the one he thought was fairer. He could have proposed some incentives to bring back manufacturing. He could have gone sector to sector, nation to nation, negotiate better trade reciprocal agreements.”
“We’re the richest country in the world, ever. We’re not the world’s victims,” Stewart said. “If we have inequalities in this country, that’s on us.”
“And I’m not saying we can’t make adjustments and renegotiate things, but it didn’t have to be this reckless,” he added.
Stewart has consistently criticized Trump and the administration’s policies, but he’s far from the only prominent critic of Trump’s tariff policies.
Joshua Bolten, the CEO of Business Roundtable, said Trump’s tariffs “run the risk of causing major harm to American manufacturers, workers, families and exporters.”
“Damage to the US economy will increase the longer the tariffs are in place and may be exacerbated by retaliatory measures,” Bolten said.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman — who came out strongly for Trump during the 2024 election — has called for Trump to call a 90-day timeout on the tariffs.
And Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest backer and most prominent advisor, broke with the administration on tariffs, advocating instead for a “zero-tariff” system and “free trade zone” between the US and Europe.
Trump’s tariff announcement has roiled markets and spooked investors. The S&P 500 is down by nearly 14% year to date, while the Nasdaq Composite is down 19% year to date.
On Sunday, Trump said he didn’t want to see markets cratering — but that “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
