President Donald Trump believes the stock market rally since his election win gives him the cushion to address the trade conflict with China and other countries.

“This is the time. You know the expression we’re playing with the bank’s money,” he told CNBC.

The S&P 500 is up 31 percent since Trump's win on Election Day, Nov. 8, 2016 through Thursday.

The market's gain has slowed this year as the administration has implemented new tariffs on countries, with the benchmark index up 4.9 percent for 2018 through Thursday.

Trump added the market would likely be much higher if he didn’t escalate the trade issues with China and the rest of the world.

“We are being taking advantage of and I don’t like it,” he said. “I would have a higher stock market right now. … It could be 80 percent [since the election] if I didn’t want to do this.”

(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).

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