Trump is the first president to 'deliberately engineer a severe depression': economist

Economist Robert Kuttner believes that President Donald Trump will go down as the first president in American history to "deliberately engineer a severe depression."

Writing in The American Prospect, Kuttner runs down all the ways that Trump's policies are putting a severe damper on economic growth, starting with the massive tariffs he has slapped on all goods coming from Canada and Mexico.

Among other things, Kuttner notes that the tariffs are going to create havoc in manufacturing supply chains since some car parts make multiple border crossings during the car production process.

"How on Earth do you levy tariffs on each border crossing without slowing down the production chain?" he wonders. "It is as if Trump wants to artificially recreate the supply chain crisis of the COVID years."

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An increase in prices from the tariffs will also result in the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates high or even once again raising them to keep inflation down, which will also grind down economic activity.

As if that weren't enough, Kuttner believes these moves will further sap consumer confidence, which has already been plummeting for the last two months.

On top of all that, he adds, the mass layoffs in the federal government will put more people out of work who will then spend less on important goods and services, thus adding yet another drag on the economy.

"A related key question is whether Trump has any master plan for the economy here, or whether he is just bats--t crazy," Kuttner muses. "The evidence is that Trump’s effort to destroy the government reflects a certain malign consistency, but that his effort to destroy the economy is based on sheer ignorance and impulsivity. His economic policy is internally inconsistent, and totally at odds with his political need to tame inflation. He is on track to have the kind of stagflation that did in Jimmy Carter, only far worse—and self-inflicted."

Read the whole piece here.