People who predicted the U.S.-China trade war would significantly damage America's economy should apologize, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Monday.
"I think there's some mea culpas that we need to hear from the people that said cyclical America would be damaged," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street."
The "Mad Money" host was responding to U.S. futures pointing to the S&P 500 opening at a record high, which later happened.
Stocks have been lifted recently from better-than-expected earnings. Of the 206 S&P 500 companies that have reported for the third quarter, 78% have beaten analyst expectations, according to FactSet.
"I really liked the industrials that reported last week. Very solid. Really solid," Cramer said. "It turns out, the industrials are not as perturbed about China as you would have thought."
Tariffs and uncertainty stemming from the long-running trade war between the world's two largest economies has triggered recalibrations of global growth estimates. Industrial stocks had, at one time, been a sector feeling pressure by the trade war.
But the strength shown by some industrial companies, such as United Technologies and Honeywell, was "rather remarkable," Cramer said. The strong quarters from industrial companies have helped push the S&P 500 to fresh highs.
"Every single one of these were much better than expected, and they were much better than expected from either self-help or the world isn't as bad as we think," Cramer said.
The U.S. and China earlier this month agreed to a partial deal as the countries work to end the trade war. While nothing has been officially signed, officials said Friday that they were "close to finalizing" the agreement.