As someone mentioned earlier, this reeks of a "pump and dump" scheme.
- Trigger an easily avoidable economic crisis
- Watch the stock market tank
- Wait for you and your oligarch friends to buy assets for a song
- Cancel the "crisis"
- Profit
The fact that Trump pretended to be unaware of the effects of the threatened tariffs on the stock market is pretty indicative of him knowing exactly what the effects would be...