US President Donald Trump has said that people signed up for the fallout from tariffs that they are afraid about.
Since Trump started announcing tariffs soon after assuming office, the markets have tanked, businesses as well as consumers have started to lose confidence, and a once resilient economy is now staring at high odds of recession.
As his approval ratings are at the lowest in decades, Trump has said that people signed up for what he is doing and suggested they should not complain.
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‘They did sign up’: Trump on people’s complaints on tariffs
When ABC News’ Terry Moran asked Trump about rising costs of goods as a result of tariffs and even his voters saying that they did not sign up for such hardships, Trump said they actually signed up.
Trump said, “Well, they did sign up for it, actually. And this is what I campaigned on. I said that — we’ve been abused by other countries at levels that nobody’s ever seen before. We were losing $3 to 5 billion a day on trade. We were losing — a trillion and a half to $2 trillion a year. Not sustainable.”
ALSO READ: Trump’s tariffs & mass-firing: Economists fear ‘stagflation’ is on the horizon
Trump went on to dismiss the effects of tariffs on cost of goods and referred to his first term as an example.
Trump said that the United States “had the best economy” in the first term despite “tremendous numbers of tariffs on” that generated “billions of dollars” in revenue from tariffs on China alone.
However, tariffs in the first term were nothing in comparison to massive tariffs that Trump has slapped in the second term.
Most Americans reject Trump’s economic & trade policies
The majority of Americans reject Trump’s policies on economy, tariffs, and inflation in his second term, according to a survey by Fox News.
A survey to mark the 100 days of his second term found that 59 per cent Americans disapprove of Trump on inflation, 58 per cent disapprove of him on tariffs, 56 per cent disapprove of him on economy, and 53 per cent on taxes.
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The ratings reflect the grim mood regarding the US economy. Economists have said that tariffs, coupled with mass-firings and dismantling of the federal government, have massively increased the odds of recession, or a worse condition called stagflation, this year.
JPMorgan Chase has said that the recession odds are 60 per cent.
Torsten Slok, the chief economist at asset management giant Apollo Global Management, has said that there is a 90 per cent probability of the United States into a ‘voluntary recession’ as a result of Trump’s trade policies for being “implemented in a way that has not been effective” after his “administration inherited an economy with strong growth”, according to Forbes.
A ‘voluntary recession’ is one that is not caused by natural external factors but is caused a result of deliberate policies.
