During a cabinet meeting held on April 30, President Donald Trump admitted that his trade tariffs could lead to higher prices and less availability of goods for American consumers, using as an example children who could have “two dolls instead of 30.” He insisted, however, that it will be China that will suffer the most from the trade war, a claim that economists refute.
His statements follow the release of a report showing a 0.3 percent contraction in U.S. GDP (gross domestic product) in the first quarter, due in part to a surge in imports before the tariffs went into effect. As the Guardian reports, Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley said, “Trump has only been in office for 100 days and the costs, chaos and corruption are already rising. The economy is slowing, prices are going up, and middle-class families are beginning to feel the effects.”
Trump sought to reassure the public, denying that tariffs could cause a recession and inexplicably blaming the current economic downturn on Joe Biden.
“This is Biden’s stock market, not Trump’s,” he wrote on his social media profile. “Tariffs will go into effect soon and companies are returning to the United States in record numbers. Our country will be booming, but we need to get rid of the burden we inherited from Biden. It will take time, but it has nothing to do with tariffs.”
The stock market drop following the GDP report gave Democrats an opportunity to criticize Trump’s policies, arguing that they are already slowing the economy and penalizing the middle class, despite the low unemployment rate (4.2 percent).
