To win in 2024, the president promised an economic course correction. Almost two years later, his agenda has made that fight even harder.
To win in 2024, the president promised an economic course correction. Almost two years later, his agenda has made that fight even harder.
A series of concerning economic snapshots for President Trump have been released over the past week.Credit…Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
In the nearly two years since President Trump clinched his return to office, the U.S. economy has come under great duress, leaving families and businesses to suffer through the expensive consequences of constant global conflict and soaring government debt.
It was the financial frustration of a pandemic-weary electorate that helped Mr. Trump and his fellow Republicans take charge in Washington in 2024, which they promised to use to defeat the scourge of inflation and slash the profligate government spending they saw as the root of the problem.
But Mr. Trump’s actions in office have complicated — if not undermined — those pledges. With two months until the midterms, some of his policies have prolonged or worsened the economic fortunes of those he promised to help.
It began with a punishing global trade war, which exacerbated the nation’s long quest to bring down the cost of living in the years following the pandemic. This week, the president escalated that offensive and took renewed aim at Canada, setting off a costly tariff tit-for-tat that could drive up prices for Americans.
Nor is the war with Iran anywhere close to complete. The seemingly intractable conflict, which reached its sixth-month anniversary on Friday, has kept gas prices sky high. And the costs of Mr. Trump’s ongoing military intervention have further exacerbated the nation’s fiscal woes, helping to send the debt soaring past $40 trillion. The development has roiled the bond market in ways that have implicated Americans’ finances, chiefly by making borrowing, including mortgages, more expensive.
The president still maintains that his administration has helped families and businesses, and righted the wrongs of his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But polls increasingly suggest that voters have tired of Mr. Trump’s appeals for patience as he enacts his full agenda. That appears poised to turn the midterms into a referendum on Mr. Trump’s credibility on the economy — a key source for his political rise.
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