The Growing Trump Created Economic Slump

Troubles for congressional Republicans are growing and not just because of Donald Trump's diarrhea of the mouth and tweet storms as the House of Representatives impeachment inquiry gains speed.  Like Trump, they are lying and obfuscating to avoid admitting Trump has engaged in impeachable offenses, and soon they will being doing the same as signs of Trump's self-created economic slump - trade wars and erratic policies do have consequences - become more evident.  Yes, the 35%  of the public that blindly supports Trump in a cult like manner will likely be unmoved as the economic downturn picks up momentum, but sane and sentient voters are likely to connect the dots and realize there is an additional reason Trump needs to be driven from the White House.  As Newsweek reports, one GOP strategist said to fellow Republicans "Trump is a suicide bomber, and you've strapped yourselves to him so tightly that when he explodes, you're going out to meet the 72 porn stars of the Trumpian afterlife with him."   That remark did not even factor in the looming economic issues. A column in the New York Times by a prominent economist lays out the damage Trump has done and continues to do.  Here are excerpts:

When he isn’t raving about how the deep state is conspiring against him, Donald Trump loves to boast about the economy, claiming to have achieved unprecedented things. As it happens, none of his claims are true. While both G.D.P. and employment have registered solid growth, the Trump economy simply seems to have continued a long expansion that began under Barack Obama.

But now it’s starting to look as if Trump really will achieve something unique: He may well be the first president of modern times to preside over a slump that can be directly attributed to his own policies, rather than bad luck.

There has always been a deep unfairness about the relationship between economics and politics: Presidents get both credit and blame for events that usually have little to do with their actions.

Now the U.S. economy is going through another partial slump. Once again, manufacturing is contracting. Agriculture is also taking a severe hit, as is shipping. Overall output and employment are still growing, but around a fifth of the economy is effectively in recession.

But unlike previous presidents, who were just unlucky to preside over slumps, Trump has done this to himself, largely by choosing to wage a trade war he insisted would be “good, and easy to win.”

The link between the trade war and agriculture’s woes is obvious: America’s farmers are deeply dependent on export markets, China in particular. So they’re hurting badly, despite a huge financial bailout that is already more than twice as big as the Obama administration’s auto bailout.

Shipping may also seem an obvious victim when tariffs reduce international trade, although it’s not just an international issue; domestic trucking is also in recession.

The manufacturing slump is more surprising. After all, America runs a large trade deficit in manufactured goods, so you might expect that tariffs, by forcing buyers to turn to domestic suppliers, would be good for the sector. That’s surely what Trump and his advisers thought would happen.

But that’s not how it has worked out. Instead, the trade war has clearly hurt U.S. manufacturing. Indeed, it has done considerably more damage than even Trump critics like yours truly expected.

The Trumpist trade warriors, it turns out, missed two key points. First, many U.S. manufacturers depend heavily on imported parts and other inputs; the trade war is disrupting their supply chains. Second, Trump’s trade policy isn’t just protectionist, it’s erratic, creating vast uncertainty for businesses both here and abroad. And businesses are responding to that uncertainty by putting plans for investment and job creation on hold.

So the tweeter in chief has bungled his way into a Trump slump, even if it isn’t a full-blown recession, at least so far. . . . Also, the pain in manufacturing seems to be falling especially hard on those swing states Trump took by tiny margins in 2016, giving him the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote. . . . . Trump is, as I said, unique in that he really did this to himself.

So what will come next? Trump being Trump, it’s a good bet that he’ll soon be denouncing troubling economic data as fake news; I wouldn’t be surprised to see political pressure on the statistical agencies to report better numbers.

The scary thing is that around 35 percent of Americans will probably believe whatever excuses Trump comes up with. But that won’t be enough to save him.

Trump is poised to utterly destroy the GOP, yet Republicans refuse to shout out that the emperor has no clothes.