Stocks are sinking. This time Trump's team doesn't care.

• Trump no longer appears to be tracking the success of his presidency through the lens of the stock market.
• The president dashed hopes that tariffs could be avoided, staying the course as markets tanked.
• His team has suggested they're eyeing the 10-year Treasury yield as a scorecard instead.

President Donald Trump isn't flinching from his sweeping tariff policy in the face of a brutal stock sell-off that has investors fleeing to safe havens this week.

The president plowed ahead with his plan to levy tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China on Tuesday. The S&P 500 extended a decline that began on Monday when Trump announced there was no last-minute deal coming to avert the tariffs. The benchmark index was down more than 1% at midday and has seen its postelection gains completely erased. The Nasdaq 100, meanwhile, has entered a correction, down 10% from its most recent peak.

But the administration has suggested the decline in stock prices isn't what the president is focused on.

"Over the medium term, which is what we're focused on, it's a focus on Main Street. Wall Street's done great, Wall Street can continue to do fine, but we have a focus on small business and consumers," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Tuesday.

The message to markets is clear: The new administration is OK with the fallout in stocks for now.

It is an about-face from Trump's first term, when he boasted about taking the stock market to a "different planet." He also regularly posted about the stock market being up "massively,", and suggested that stocks would have crashed had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election.

In what perhaps is the best example of how much validation Trump derived from the stock market, in 2020 he sent the late Fox News host Lou Dobbs an autographed chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The chart showed the index's nearly 2,000-point rise the day Trump declared COVID-19 a national emergency.

But the president has been quiet about the stock market lately, saying little to boost investors' mood despite stocks trading lower than when he won the election in November.

Trump's team has suggested that other scorecards could be used to measure success. In February, Bessent pointed to the 10-year Treasury yield as a barometer on the president's radar, emphasizing the focus on borrowing costs for Americans, which are often tied to government bond yields.

"He and I are focused on the 10-year Treasury, and what is the yield of that," Bessent told Fox Business. "He wants lower rates."

The yield on the 10-year bond slid four basis points on Tuesday as concerns about tariffs' impact on economic growth overshadowed fears that a trade war would lead to higher inflation. The rally in bond prices, which move inversely to yields, means Treasurys have now outperformed stocks since the election, according to Bloomberg data.

The president's moves have also challenged the views of Wall Street forecasters, who predicted he could step in if markets became too volatile.

"On election day S&P 500 closed at 5783; we say this is first strike price of Trump put, below which 'Stocks Down Under Trump' headlines begin, below which investors currently long risk would very much expect and need some verbal support for markets from policymakers," Bank of America strategists wrote last week before tariffs sparked the latest stock rout.

On Truth Social, the president's recent posts have revolved largely around things like tariffs, his immigration policy, and progress on a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, with no mention of the stock market.

Trump's team did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.