Donald Trump’s economy is a disaster

| 11:30 pm EDT March 20, 2019
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“President” Donald Trump repeatedly talks about the great economy and how hot and on fire it is. During his 2016 campaign, he derided Obama’s GDP growth as being anemic and terrible, promising that the growth would exceed 3% a year when he became president. Well, turns out, the “Greatest Negotiator of All Time” (“GNAT”) and the “Art of the Deal” man is not so great after all.

In late February, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the 2018 growth was 2.9%, matching Obama’s peak year of 2015. Some economists have predicted that 2.9% will be the peak for Trump in his first term. On Wednesday, the news of a stagnating economy continued. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell had promised several rate hikes in 2019, causing him to be in the cross hairs of Trump’s proverbial venom when he did so. On Wednesday, Powell promised there would be no more rate hikes and noted the economic growth rate will be 2.1%. They have reduced the economic growth forecasts through 2021 to less than 2%.

These grim economic forecasts throw Trump and the GOP’s assertions about how the trillion-dollar tax cut would stimulate the economy onto the trash heap. In addition to the revised forecasts and less than stellar growth predicted, Trump has been feverishly trying to get GM to reverse its decision announced last year to close its plant in Lordstown, Ohio, blaming that on a local union leader.

What Donald Trump and his administration fail to understand, apparently, is that his tariff positions have done harm to not only farmers, but to the automobile industry. This comes at the same time that reports from Politico and elsewhere describe an undisclosed report that Trump has that would justify significant tariffs on automobile imports, which would again hit the auto industry hard. Trump once again shows that he and the GOP stomp like elephants but their business approach stings like a GNAT. Winning, Trump style.