The Stupid Economy

Trump’s 2024 campaign promised a return to a “Golden Age” through inflation control, new tariffs, additional wealthy tax cuts, a manufacturing and investment revival, and renewed oil and coal extraction while reducing solar and wind subsidies. After roughly a year and a half in office, few of these outcomes have materialized. Tax cuts have not produced broadly shared economic growth, labor market performance has stalled, and manufacturing continues to decline in a service-heavy economy. Tariffs have delivered limited benefits and, even before being ruled unconstitutional, mainly increased retail prices. A chosen war with Iran has driven up costs for energy, food, and other essentials. The record undermines a public myth of Trump as a market genius.

"On his return, he'd tame the inflationary legacy of the Biden White House, institute a new regime of tariffs to strengthen America's standing in the global economy, pass yet more tax cuts for the wealthy, preside over a newly resurgent manufacturing sector and investment economy, and revive America's hallowed extractive industries of oil and coal while mothballing federal subsidies for solar and wind energy."

"Cut to a year and a half into his second term, and Trump has a ccomplished almost nothing in his promised suite of Golden Age breakthroughs. Yes, there were sweeping tax cuts in his 2025 taxation and spending bill, but they have produced no real broadly distributed economic growth; the labor economy has stalled, and manufacturing continues to decline in a service-dominated US economy."

"Even before the Supreme Court found them unconstitutional, Trump's tariffs yielded little more than higher retail prices for consumers. And his feckless war of choice with Iran has sent the costs of energy, food, and other mainstay products skyrocketing."

"It goes to the heart of the bogus public image he's lovingly cultivated during his tour through American celebrity culture-the fable that he's a Promethean business genius whose unerring instinct for exploiting market opportunities has vastly improved both his fortune and the world surrounding him."

Read at The Nation