After putting the US economy on thin ice, Donald Trump is looking for someone to blame when it crashes.
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Donald Trump is a master at making his own achievements — no matter how unremarkable they are — sound like they are the most amazing accomplishments in history; taking credit for the successes of others; and blaming everybody but himself for his own failures.
That is how an average US economy during his first term became the “greatest in history,” which is a claim so laughable that one look at any statistical category shows that it is false.
Of course, when you brag about being the greatest, and then find yourself in the Oval Office again, you have to deliver.
And that’s Trump’s current dilemma because, while he inherited a robust economy from Joe Biden, his erratic tariff policies are posing a real threat to everything from gross domestic product growth to unemployment and inflation.
So far, the economy is still cruising along in some of those areas. However, most of the tariffs have also not yet gone into effect, and there is a very real chance that when (or if) they do, they will do great harm to the economy and, by extension, the American people.
Plenty of warning signs are already flashing. The US just lost its perfect rating from Moody’s, growth is stagnating, and consumers are concerned.
In addition, if congressional Republicans further balloon the debt by passing Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” there is a good chance that bond markets will react poorly, which is going to add to the current economic uncertainty.
In other words, there is a very real chance that it will all come crashing down later this year.
And if that happens, then Trump, who made all kinds of wild promises about ushering in a “golden age,” lowering prices, and perhaps even eliminating income taxes for many Americans, will have some explaining to do.
Or, to be more precise, he will have some blaming to do, and we already know who the top fall guy is going to be.
When asked last month which parts of the economy are “his,” the president answered in the most Trumpian way possible.
“I think the good parts are the ‘Trump economy’ and the bad parts are the ‘Biden economy’ because he’s done a terrible job,” he said.
With every bit of decent economic news, Trump is claiming that his policies are working. On Monday, for example, he stated that the economy is “booming” because of his tariffs (most of which have not yet gone into effect).
If that’s the case, then it doesn’t make sense that Biden could be somehow at fault if things go south.
And, if he can’t believably blame his predecessor, then the president will need another scapegoat… like the Supreme Court.
“If the Courts somehow rule against us on Tariffs, which is not expected, that would allow other Countries to hold our Nation hostage with their anti-American Tariffs that they would use against us,” he wrote in a social media post on Monday. “This would mean the Economic ruination of the United States of America!”
Economic ruination? That sounds serious. What else does Trump have?
“If other Countries are allowed to use Tariffs against us, and we’re not allowed to counter them, quickly and nimbly, with Tariffs against them, our Country doesn’t have, even a small chance, of Economic survival,” he wrote later.
Just a few minor points.
The country can absolutely counter any tariff it wants. The Constitution has given Congress the authority to levy tariffs and, while the legislative branch grants presidents some of its power in this area, it can do so at any time.
However — and this is the issue that will land before the Supreme Court eventually — Trump cannot just usurp that authority by granting himself emergency powers in a non-emergency.
In addition, the US has been doing just fine previously, so the president’s obsession with tariffs is a bit strange, especially because Trump does not actually seem to understand how tariffs (or trade) work.
Finally, it’s not as though he hasn’t been president before. During his first term, he managed to stave off “economic ruination” just fine without starting a trade war.
But this is something to keep an eye on.
We predict that Trump is going to increasingly blame the courts for any piece of bad economic news. That not only allows him to play the victim, his favorite role, and to shirk responsibility; it also puts pressure on the Supreme Court to rule his way.
In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
