Trump world insiders worried they could be sitting on a 'ticking time bomb': report

There are growing fears within Trump world that the economic path Donald Trump is taking the country down is poised to go south now that the impact of his tariffs is starting to take effect.

According to a report from Wired’s Jake Lahut, the tariffs combined with the roundup of immigrants, which is impacting the labor pool, has created uncertainty that has supporters of the president wary that his “experiment” in driving the economy may not pan out.

Writing, “Trump has put almost all the ingredients in place for slow growth amid high unemployment and inflation, the potent combination known as stagflation,” Lahut added that a coming “tariff hike on Chinese goods, now set to jump from 30 percent to 80 percent by November 10” has some Republicans in Trumpworld’s orbit “bracing for impact.”

“I’m probably surprised that there has not been more concern,” a Republican strategist and former Trump administration official explained. “I think the reality is that we’re at that sort of inflection point, where retailers were reluctant to raise prices because they feared retaliation from the administration.” They added, “Now the reality is setting in that these are not transitory. There are going to be economic consequences.”

Noting that a combination of the tariffs, which are hitting U.S. consumers’ pocketbooks already, and rising unemployment, is creating a “ticking time bomb,” one Trump strategist admitted, “If this experiment fails, it’s gonna fail horribly, and I think we’ll begin to see the impacts of that sooner than later.”

According to James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University, “All signs look pretty pessimistic on the inflation front. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that tariffs will increase the prices we pay for imported goods. No amount of spin will change that.”

He added, “The economic chaos with on-again, off-again tariffs has caused business and consumer expectations to drop. That in itself is likely to cause a recession.”

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