Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump indicated he wasn't concerned about market losses that have already wiped out nearly $US6 ($A10) trillion in value from US stocks.
"I don't want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something," he said on Sunday.
Trump said he had spoken to leaders from Europe and Asia over the weekend, who hope to convince him to lower tariffs as high as 50 per cent due to take effect this week.
"They are coming to the table. They want to talk but there's no talk unless they pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis," Trump said.
Trump's tariff announcement last week jolted economies around the world, triggering retaliatory levies from China and sparking fears of a global trade war and recession.
On Sunday morning talk shows, Trump's top economic advisers sought to portray the tariffs as a savvy repositioning of the US in the global trade order.
They also tried to minimise the economic shocks from last week's tumultuous rollout.Â
Wall Street stock futures opened sharply lower on Sunday, in a sign of further turbulence.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said more than 50 nations had started negotiations with the US since last Wednesday's announcement.
"He's created maximum leverage for himself," Bessent said on NBC News' Meet the Press.
Neither Bessent nor the other officials named the countries or offered details about the talks. But simultaneously negotiating with multiple governments could pose a logistical challenge for the Trump administration and prolong economic uncertainty.
Bessent said there was "no reason" to anticipate a recession, citing stronger-than-anticipated US jobs growth last month, before the tariffs were announced.
JPMorgan economists now estimate the tariffs will result in full-year US gross domestic product declining by 0.3 per cent, down from an earlier estimate of 1.3 per cent growth, and that the unemployment rate will climb to 5.3 per cent from 4.2 per cent now.
Trump spent the weekend in Florida, playing golf and posted a video of his swing to social media on Sunday.
