Advisors to U.S. President Donald Trump defended import defense and vowed to move forward despite market turmoil and calling for avoiding a trade war.

In a series of TV interviews, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched the recent stock market decline, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick insisting that “tariffs are coming.”

“There is no reason” to expect a recession due to turmoil, Bessent said. “It’s a process of adjustment,” he said.

Meanwhile, another top adviser, Kevin Hassett, said more than 50 countries have contacted Trump to try to negotiate a deal.

All three major U.S. stock indexes fell more than 5% on Friday, while S&P 500 shares fell nearly 6% in the worst week since 2020.

State-owned media said Saudi Arabia’s stock exchanges traded on Sunday fell by nearly 7% amid signs of continued market vulnerability this week, the biggest daily loss since the pandemic.

Lutnick told CBS News on Sunday that “baseline” tariffs on all imports (effective one day ago) will definitely “stay for a few days and weeks”.

Lutnick continued that the steeper reciprocity tariffs are still on track.

Custom tariffs for approximately 60 countries in approximately 60 countries that will come into effect on Wednesday, April 9.

When asked about the tariffs, Lutnik said they were coming. “[Trump]announced this, and he is not kidding,” he said.

Bessent argued through an interview with NBC’s Meet The Meet that Trump “created the biggest leverage for himself, and more than 50 countries have been with the government to reduce their non-tariff trade barriers, lower tariffs, and stop currency manipulation.”

Kevin Hassett, another top Trump economic adviser, also repeated the claim that more than 50 countries expressed their desire to start negotiations. Neither Hassett nor Bessent provided further details on which countries were contacted.

Elsewhere, Indonesia and Taiwan said over the weekend that they would not impose retaliatory tariffs after the U.S. announced a 32% tax on imports from both countries.

Vietnam’s leaders to Lin asked Trump to delay Vietnam’s 46% responsibility for the United States for at least 45 days, according to a letter from news agency AFP and the New York Times.

However, China announced on Friday that it will impose a 34% tariff on all U.S. imports on Thursday, April 10.

British Prime Minister Sir Kyle Starmer warned on Saturday that “the world we know has disappeared”.

Starmer said the UK government will continue to reach an economic agreement with the United States to avoid some tariffs.

A Downing Street spokesman added Starmer and New Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed on the phone that “a full-scale trade war is not in anyone’s interest.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to hold trade talks with Trump in Washington, D.C. on Monday.

Addressing reporters while boarding the U.S., Netanyahu said he was “the first international leader to meet with Trump” because of the introduction of new tariffs.

It shows that they are “connected between individual connections and connections between our country that are so essential”, he said.

Anti-Trump protests are held in cities across the United States On the weekendThe largest opposition performance in the country since the president took office in January.

In hundreds of thousands of people, including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., and other cities, protesters believe Trump’s agenda ranges from social issues to economic issues.

Trump urged the United States to “hang up” after market turmoil, but how Asian markets will react when they open on Monday remains to be seen.