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"You know, somebody said, Oh, the shelves are going to be open,'" Trump continued, offering a hypothetical. "Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. So maybe the two dolls will cost a couple bucks more than they would normally."

His remarks followed a defensive morning after the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.3% during the first quarter. Behind the decline was a surge in imports as companies tried to front-run the sweeping tariffs on autos, steel, aluminum and almost every country. And even positive signs of increased domestic consumption indicated that purchases might be occurring before the import taxes lead to price increases.

Trump pointed his finger at Biden as the stock market fell Wednesday morning in response to the gross domestic product report.

"This is Biden's Stock Market, not Trump's," the Republican president, who took office in January, posted on his social media site. "Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden Overhang.' This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS."