Ray Dalio’s comments come after rocky week across stock markets after policies including 145% tariff raise on China
Billionaire investor Ray Dalio said that he is worried the US will experience “something worse than a recession” as a result of Donald Trump’s trade policies.
Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the 75-year-old hedge fund manager said: “I think that right now we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession. And I’m worried about something worse than a recession if this isn’t handled well.”
He went on to add: “A recession is two negative quarters of GDP and whether it goes slightly there. We always have those things. We have something that’s much more profound. We have a breaking down of the monetary order. We are going to change the monetary order because we cannot spend the amounts of money.”
There was a lot more in that interview than “tariffs bad”.
“Right now we are at a decision-making point and very close to a recession,” Dalio said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “And I’m worried about something worse than a recession if this isn’t handled well.”
The hedge fund billionaire said he’s more concerned about trade disruptions, mounting U.S. debt, and emerging world powers bringing down the international economic and geopolitical structure that has been in place since the end of World War II.
“We are going from multilateralism, which is largely an American world order type of thing, to a unilateral world order in which there’s great conflict,” he said.
Dalio said five forces drive history: the economy, internal political conflict, the international order, technology, and acts of nature such as floods and pandemics. Trump’s tariffs have understandable goals, Dalio said, but they are being implemented in a “very disruptive” way that creates global conflict.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/13/billionaire-ray-dalio-im-worried-about-something-worse-than-a-recession.html
The thing is, Dalio has been warning about this for years now. Here’s a link from 2023 where he was talking about disruptions:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/18/ray-dalio-warns-of-great-disruptions-shares-tips-for-new-investors-.html
Here’s a link from 2021 where he was warning about the same thing:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/07/billionaire-ray-dalio-economic-disaster-is-coming-preparation-advice.html
Here’s a link talking about him sounding alarms in 2019:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/09/ray-dalio-burning-man
What he’s warning about is something more like Peter turchins secular cycles. A perfect storm is approaching that could lead to a revolution or war or the end of the American empire. The tariffs are a concern, but a tactical one where the whole board is in play.