Trump's tariff rollercoaster could tank his presidency
You've got a better chance of predicting when an earthquake will hit California than you have predicting what President Trump is going to do tomorrow — regardless of what he says today.
First, he tells us tariffs are on. Then tariffs are off, sort of — and, who knows, he may change his mind again before he sits down for lunch.
Stocks are down, then they're up and by the time you read this they may be down again. Who knows?
Trump isn't happy unless he's unleashing some kind of chaos on the world. And yesterday, when the president suddenly announced that he would back down on his 'reciprocal' tariffs for 90 days, the S&P 500 took off, rising almost 10 percent in just one day.
When he was running for president in 2024, Trump made a promise to the American people — a promise that played as well in diners in Ohio as it did in boardrooms in Manhattan: that he would lower prices and build a booming economy unlike anything we'd seen under President Joe Biden.
The pitch was simple. Elect a businessman, not a politician. Elect someone who knows the art of the deal, not the art of government red tape. Prices will drop, jobs will come back and America will be great again.
Fast forward — President Trump is back in the White House, and last week he announced what he called 'Liberation Day,' which turned out to be 'Obliteration Day' as the stock markets crashed, with the Dow falling almost 1,700 points.
Liberation Day was when he announced a whole array of steep tariffs on friends and foes alike. But you just knew Trump wasn't going to let the markets continue to slide. If that happened, he'd be seen as the villain who drained 401(k) retirement accounts from senior citizens, who just happen to vote in big numbers.
Hence, the reprieve he announced yesterday. But his decisions on tariffs have already caused damage — to more than the financial markets.
After a few days of devastating loses, Gerry Baker wrote in his Wall Street Journal column that Trump is trashing America's reputation around the and doing 'irreversible damage to the greatest geopolitical brand ever created.'
'Allies — staunchly pro-American friends from Canada to Denmark to Poland — are sullen, angry and scared,' Baker writes. 'Adversaries who have long envied our power and tried unsuccessfully to undermine it, are hugging themselves with joy.'
And tariffs are taxes by another name. They don't just punish China, Mexico or Vietnam. They punish Americans who buy things — which, last I checked, is just about everyone, which explains why he's now having second thoughts about his 'beautiful' tariffs.
If Trump didn't change course, prices weren't going to come down as he promised; they'd go up. The economy wouldn't get stronger but would likely slide into recession,
And here's the political reality: When the economy tanks, presidents pay — and so does their party. It doesn't matter how much they talk about bringing jobs home. Americans may love the idea of long-term strategy, but they vote based on short-term pain.
Trump has said that over time tariffs would help bring back manufacturing. That they'd create millions of good-paying jobs here at home. Maybe that would be true. Maybe it's wishful thinking.
But people don't live in the long run — they live in the right now. And if the Trump tariffs ultimately wind up staying in place, groceries will cost more — same with appliances, cars and a whole bunch of other things. That's not a winning message.
Americans will head to the polls for the midterms in 18 months. And if prices are high and the economy is wobbly, don't be surprised if the Democrats take back the House. The Senate is a steeper climb, but not impossible. And if they pull it off, Trump's second-term agenda will be finished.
The big gains in the markets yesterday may be the beginning of more gains, or it could just be what they call 'a bear market bounce' — a short uptick in stocks coming after several devastating down days.
So who knows how this will turn out. But Trump's brand has always been tied to the idea that he's a businessman who knows how to make deals. If that narrative collapses, then not only does he lose the political clout that comes with his presidency, his party could be dragged down with him.
And if that happens, no amount of spin, no amount of 'rosy scenarios' from the Trump White House would change the facts on the ground. As James Carville once famously said: 'It's the economy, stupid.' Always has been. Always will be.
One more thing: When Trump declared that tariff 'is the most beautiful word in the dictionary,' did anyone in his inner circle have the courage — or the common sense — to say, 'Mr. President, this is not a good idea, not the way you're going about it. The way you're doing it will create turmoil in markets around the world and turn our friends into enemies?'
Knowing Trump's penchant for surrounding himself with 'yes men' and 'yes women,' the short answer is: not likely.
Too bad. Because if somebody had the guts to speak truth to Trump's power, he — and all of us — could have avoided a lot of the needless chaos that he single-handedly created.
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