Every American is aware that Trump champions tariffs in general and his tariff program in particular — even those who barely follow politics.
Yesterday, in Corner post about Trump’s 100 Days, I wrote, “If some combination of the normal economic headwinds at the present stage of the business cycle and the Trump tariffs contribute to bringing on a recession, inflation, or — worse — stagflation, I don’t see any way that Trump or his party can escape the political blame for it”:
The Democratic Party and its allies in the press will, of course, do everything in their power to turn the “Trump Recession” into Great Depression 2.0. Even armed with the bully pulpit and Truth Social, I don’t think Trump and his administration will be able to (now) blame a recession on Joe Biden, as they perhaps could have before liberation day.
Along with the problem of illegal immigration and the general sense that Americans were fed up with wokeness, Trump won in November because millions of voters hoped that his reelection would return the country to the economic results of 2019, the last full year before the pandemic.
If Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs had never set off market turmoil, and the markets and the wider economy was now teetering on the precipice, I think most Americans, outside of committed Democratic partisans, would probably give Trump a pass for the turbulence.
But, now, I don’t think this is going to work:
Not only is Trump the most famous person on earth, a man who dominates the political discussions of our country (and even neighboring countries such as Canada), but Joe Biden has been off the stage for nearly nine months. He withdrew from the presidential race on July 21, 2024. He’s old news and has disappeared from American political life. His presidency is a bad memory for most people.
In the meantime, Donald Trump has instituted (and then paused) a massive economic dislocation via his tariffs. Every American is aware that Trump champions tariffs in general and his tariff program in particular — even those who barely follow politics. Every American is aware that price increases and economic turmoil are on the offing and are predicted by most economists and business leaders, even if Trump’s supporters believe that the end result some months or years down the road will be worth the short-term costs.
And again, some of the market turmoil might not even be Trump’s fault. We could be seeing something of a normal correction — an accounting for overpriced equities markets — and an economic slowdown as part of the normal pace of the business cycle. But that’s not going to matter much when it comes to the political effects of all this.
A few Trump tweets trying to shift the blame to Biden are not going to work. Such a strategy may have worked if and only if Trump hadn’t become so famously associated with this spring’s tariff revolution and liberation day.
But he has — so it won’t.