Former Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday said President Donald Trump’s tariffs are “clearly inviting a recession” as she tore into his “reckless” trade policy from his first 100 days in office.
In a speech in San Francisco, delivered on the same day the U.S. Commerce Department released an economic report that’s politically damaging for Trump, Harris blasted the president and his allies for trying to spread fear, while tanking the economy.
“What they have overlooked is that fear is not the only thing that’s contagious,” she said. “Courage is contagious, the courage of Americans who are banding together in the face of the greatest man-made economic crisis in modern presidential history.”
Across the country, Americans are reeling over the effects of Trump’s “reckless tariffs,” Harris added.
Gross domestic product shrank by 0.3% in the first four months of the year, the U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday, after having increased 2.4% at the end of last year, in a worrying sign for the U.S. economy.
Instead of working to reassure the public, Trump blamed the bad news on his predecessor, Joe Biden, insisting that he had nothing to do with it.
“Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang,’” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers.”
“BE PATIENT,” he added.
He later also suggested Americans will just have to learn to live with the consequences of his trade war.
During the 2024 campaign, Harris had criticized Trump’s plans for widespread tariffs, telling MSNBC the measures would effectively act as a “sales tax on the American people.”
Now, nearly six months after Election Day, Harris said her fears are coming true.
“Some people are describing what’s been happening in recent months as absolute chaos and, of course, I understand why,” she said. “And it’s certainly true of those tariffs, tariffs that as I predicted are clearly inviting a recession.”
Harris also accused Trump of failing to meet one of his signature campaign pledges of lowering costs for Americans.
“Folks, what we are experiencing right now is exactly what they envision for America,” she said. “Right now, we are living in their vision for America. But this is not a vision that Americans want.”
Harris did not weigh in on her political future as she is reportedly considering entering the 2026 California governor’s race.