
How to trash an economic superpower in 100 days
CNN
How to trash an economic superpower in 100 days
The president doesn’t control the economy, right? Every election year, that’s the reminder voters get from historians, politicos, journalists and academics of all stripes. It’s practically a cliché — voters make choices based on gas prices and grocery bills, even though those things are largely out of any one politician’s control. The political adage isn’t wrong, per se. It is, in fact, difficult for a single president to drastically improve the economy writ large. But President Donald Trump is proving that a politician can absolutely harm the economy when they lack any regard for the consequences, borne largely by the people who elected them. Tuesday marks the 100th day of Trump’s second term. In those 14 weeks, the president has unleashed an economic agenda so punishing that the only way to understand it in a historical context is not through a lens of policy but of plagues. If the Trump tariffs remain in place, the negative shocks could eclipse the the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. While Trump campaigned on a pledge to “immediately bring down prices, starting on Day One,” the White House has made scant progress on that promise beyond a broad executive order demanding federal agencies “deliver emergency price relief.” Trump’s only major economic initiative, a sweeping tariff agenda, amounts to a massive tax increase on American consumers. And it has landed the US at the lonely center of a global trade war — the sole aggressor, lobbing tax bombs at friends and foes alike.













