As presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump promised an “economic boom like no other.”
But eight weeks after his presidency, Trump refuses to rule out a recession, a surprising change in the tone and message for a man who set up a great economic dissatisfaction to the White House when promising “to make the United States again be affordable.”
Their comments arise when the stock market is falling (the S&P 500 fell 2.7 percent on Monday after falling 3.1 percent last week, and business leaders are scared of uncertainty about their tariffs. Even some Republicans, who fear the remuneration if Mr. Trump cross, have begun to raise concerns about their taxes.
The moment captures a fundamental challenge for Trump, a showman that makes absolute and radical promises that inevitably run into the reality of the government.
The economy that Mr. Trump inherited was according to many standards in solid form, with low unemployment, moderate growth and an inflation rate that, although even higher than the Federal Reserve wants, had decreased substantially. But the uncertainty that their policies have injected into perspectives is a discordant contrast with the image that Mr. Trump painted in the campaign.
“We will begin a new era of high income,” Trump said in a demonstration in October. “Turned wealth. Millions and millions of new jobs and a booming middle class. We are going to boom as if we had never boom before. “
That promising to create an economic boom has gathered in conflict, at least for now, with the president’s favorite economic tool: tariffs. He promised those who also during the campaign and, as economists warned, are the main driver of the country’s cloudy economic perspectives. The JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs forecasts say that a recession during the next year has been more likely due to Mr. Trump’s tariffs.
Until now, the president seems to be trying to reduce expectations. In an interview that was broadcast on Sunday in Fox News, Trump turned when Maria Bartiromo asked him if he was waiting for a recession this year.
“I hate to predict things like that,” he said. “There is a transition period, because what we are doing is very large. We are bringing wealth back to America. That is a great thing. And there are always periods of, it takes a little time. Take a little time, but I think it should be great for us. ”
In his speech last week to a joint session of Congress, Trump acknowledged that tariffs would cause “a bit of disturbance.” But he said: “We agree with that. It won’t be much. “
Even when the markets sink, world leaders are stirred and business leaders speak, Trump has made it clear that he has no plans to change their rate strategy. He imposed broad tariffs in Canada, Mexico and China last week and has promised to advance more next month. But Mr. Trump, who has an inclination to change position for whim, already invested course in some of the rates and could do it again.
“Look, our country has been scammed for many decades, for many, many decades, and we are no longer scammed,” Trump said in Fox News.
Trump, who called the opening bell in the New York Stock Exchange in December, closely monitors the stock market. In his first term, he regularly pointed out a prosperous stock market as evidence of his success. Many business leaders joined behind Mr. Trump’s campaign due to their belief that they would prioritize their economic interests, but now some executive directors and small companies complain about the economic pain that their tariffs will bring. The president can listen to those concerns directly from the main executive directors when he meets with the members of the round business table on Tuesday.
On Monday, since the stock market had its worst day since December, White House officials sought to redirect conversation.
“Since President Trump was elected, industry leaders have responded to the first economic agenda of President Trump in the first economic agenda of tariffs, deregulation and wear of American energy with Billions with investment commitments that will create thousands of new jobs,” said Kush Desai, spokesman for the White House, in a statement. “President Trump delivered historical work, salary and investment growth in his first mandate, and is ready to do it again in his second term.”
In recent days, Trump’s main advisors have tried to reassure markets and business leaders. Howard Lutnick, the Voluble Secretary of Commerce, said on Sunday that “there was no possibility” of a recession. Scott Besent, the Treasury Secretary, was not so inflexible, saying on Friday that there would be a “natural adjustment” as the economy goes through a “detoxification period” of trusting government spending.
“The press of the president’s complete court and its substitutes this weekend indicates that they are under great pressure of the people they listen: the stock market, the republican legislators and the business leaders,” said Kate Kalutkiewicz, senior managing director of McLarty Associates, an advisory firm.
Mrs. Kalutkiewicz, who worked in the National Economic Council in the Trump first term, said the president’s comments and his assistants suggest that they do not plan to change course in response to the growing choir of concern.
Stephen Moore, economist at the Heritage Foundation who is a former economic advisor of Mr. Trump, said the problem for the president is time. Moore said Trump should have waited until Congress approved tax cuts to institute tariffs.
“First, let’s make the economy back to boom and then talk about tariffs,” he said. “I think there must be a change of priority.”
Senator Ron Wyden, a Oregon Democrat who is the classification member in the Senate Finance Committee, said the Trump administration approach to tariffs is “poison” for the economy of the United States.
“The chaos that create every day is basically an anchor linked to the US economy, and it will drag more and more of our workers under water the more time it happens,” he said in an interview. “We are trying to stop them.”
The question that hangs on Washington is how long Mr. Trump can support a decline stock market, and the consequent coverage of the negative media that accompanies him.
“I don’t know,” said Moore. “It’s a good question. I am sure that the president is concerned with losses in the stock market in the last 10 days. We are all. “
