Just four days after April 2 which President Trump declared "Liberation Day" and followed through on his campaign promise to impose sweeping tariffs to correct unfair foreign practices, the S&P 500 dropped 12%.

Wall Street threw a freak-out, and as prominent economists immediately warned of a recession investors fled the market in droves.

A week later, on April 9 after Trump announced on social media a "90-day PAUSE" (except for China), the S&P soared by 9.5%, one of its best days ever with employers adding 177,000 jobs for the month.

And whereas just a few weeks ago that index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts was down about 15% for the year, by mid-May it had rallied 5.3% and went positive with a historic $8 trillion market comeback.

The S&P 500 has now fully erased the year's losses.

Following what Kevin Gordon, a senior investment strategist at Charles Schwab described as a "free-fall moment" when "investor sentiment got to the panic levels," the recovery has been just as swift … the fastest since 1982.

According to Yahoo Finance.com three out of every four S&P 500 companies have beaten recent profit expectations, with Microsoft and Meta Platforms up nearly 13.6% year-over-year.

Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) stocks have surged more than 20% apiece since the April 8 low, and Nvidia (NVDA) has spiked more than 40%.

As for a looming Trump recession, JPMorgan Chase economists have dialed back their 60% prediction in early April before Trump's 90-day country-specific tariff pause to less than 50%, while Goldman Sachs now sees a 35% recession chance down from 45% and Polymarket pessimism plunging from 66% to 39%.

Inflation worries are down too, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting some major consumer category price declines.

According to AAA, unleaded fuel costs about $3.16 per gallon, down from $3.62 a year ago, with grocery price growth recording its sharpest slowdown since 2023 largely driven by falling egg costs.

Meanwhile, according to Trump trade advisor Kevin Hassett, at least 75 countries are reportedly lined up seeking to do trade deals with the U.S. during a 90-day Trump tariff pause, with 15 currently in active negotiations.

Included are Japan, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and India.

Whereas Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has said he does not plan to offer "big concessions for the sake of wrapping up negotiations quickly," he has previously indicated that Japan would offer a package that could include trade agreements on U.S. liquefied natural gas, cars, agriculture and defense in a deal aimed at the U.S. lifting tariffs entirely.

The U.K. has announced it would suspend tariffs on 89 U.S. goods ranging from items including pasta, fruit juices, electric car batteries and spices to plastics and gardening supplies over the next two years and is reportedly interested in negotiating an economic agreement to reduce not only the 10% across-the-board tariffs but 25% levies on metals and cars as well.

Trade deals with South Korea where the U.S. has several military bases and strategic THAAD missile systems are certain to emphasize mutual defense priorities, but also include shipbuilding, large-scale purchase of U.S. LNG, and a joint venture in an Alaska pipeline.

India, which subjects all U.S. imports to between 5% and 30% tariffs is reportedly open to reducing these amounts on half of them, with a goal of pursuing a bilateral $500 billion U.S. trade agreement by 2030.

Regarding China, President Trump's tough tariff policy is about more than standard trade beefs.

Beijing has been ripping us off with intellectual property theft, controlling our supply line for pharmaceuticals, sending deadly fentanyl across our border with Mexico, subsidizing electric vehicles and other products that compete with our markets, purchasing U.S. farmland for spying on security-sensitive facilities, and reverse-engineering some of our most advanced military equipment.

We should be mindful that this unbalanced trade dispute is also a U.S. and allied nation global security matter.

Amid looming prospects of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan we are witnessing Beijing scaling up its naval and nuclear capabilities, a near-nuclearized Iran along with Russia selling them oil, and Iran and North Korea, in turn, providing Russia with drones used against our ally Ukraine paid for in part by tariffs on merchandise we purchase from them.

America urgently needs and fortunately has a bold leader who thrives on addressing enormously complex and consequential challenges at a time of combined economic and military threats.

He was elected to take on these challenges and deserves boldness on our part to give him every chance and confidence to do so.

Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.