President Trump proclaimed that the “operation is over” and “the patient lived” as his raft of foreign auto tariffs began taking effect and a baseline import tax against nearly every country will get the greenlight April 5 — before the stock market took a nosedive Thursday morning.

“The operation is over!” Trump, 78, declared Thursday morning on Truth Social. “The patient lived, and is healing. The prognosis is that the patient will be far stronger, bigger, better, and more resilient than ever before. Make America great again!!!”

As part of his so-called “Liberation Day” on Wednesday, Trump had announced a tariff of 10% and customized rates against virtually every US trading partner to be implemented on Saturday, except ones that have been sanctioned and a few that were previously targeted.

There was also a 25% tariff on vehicles not assembled in the US that took effect Thursday. Further tariffs on auto parts are scheduled to start May 3.

The president has long called for deploying tariffs to revive domestic manufacturing and reindustrialize the US. Critics fear that the large tariffs could cause prices to spike for everyday consumers and hamper economic growth.

Markets reeled after the opening bell Thursday, with the Dow Jones cratering 1,227 points or 2.9% as of 10 am ET, while the S&P 500 dropped 205 points or 3.6% and the Nasdaq plummeted 811 points or 4.6%.

op Trump administration officials have acknowledged that there will likely be some short-term pain but have argued that sacrifice will lead to an economic renasiance in the long run.

“This is the reordering of fair trade,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Thursday morning. “It’s about those non-tariff trade barriers. That’s what we are addressing.”

The batch of tariffs that Trump claims are “reciprocal” was largely customized against countries based on the US trade deficit with them. However, several countries, such as Australia, where the US has a trade surplus, were still hit with the baseline 10% tariff.

Some of the tariffs even hit largely uninhabited places such as Heard Island and McDonald Islands, but White House officials insisted that’s because they’re Australian territories.

“I expect most countries to start to really examine their trade policy towards the United States of America, and stop picking on us,” Lutnick continued on CNBC. “Stop saying that we can’t sell our corn to India, stop saying that we can’t sell our beef anywhere. Just stop treating us so poorly.”