Facts matter, not fantasies

“Tariff Whiplash Spooks U.S.

Consumers,” blares the Wall Street Journal.

“How the US economy went from booming to a recession scare in only 20 days,” reports CNN.

“Donald Trump’s economic delusions are already hurting America,” asserts The Economist. “The president and reality are drifting apart.”

“In his speech to Congress on March 4th, President Donald Trump painted a fantastical picture,” explains The Economist. “The American Dream, he declared, was surging bigger and better than ever before. His tariffs would preserve jobs, make America richer still and protect its very soul.

Unfortunately, in the real world, things look different. Investors, consumers and companies show the first signs of souring on the Trumpian vision. With his aggressive and erratic protectionism, Mr. Trump is playing with fire.”

The key phrase here is “real world.” In his past life, Trump “painted a fantastical picture” of himself as a brilliant tycoon, when in fact he went bankrupt six times. In his next career, as a reality TV star, his flair for fantasy was a huge asset; reality TV thrives on a grossly distorted and exaggerated version of the “real world.”

In that universe, uncertainty and suspense are crucial ingredients of success.

One of Trump’s closest confidants, Roger Stone, once described him as a man “working without a net,” who would do or say anything. The oldest trope in the reality TV script is to say: You want to know who gets voted off the island or fired by the boss? Tune in next week.

But the economy is not a reality TV show. In economics, uncertainty is not delicious, it’s disastrous.

Economic actors, from big executives to small consumers, all crave predictability, and that’s the last thing Trump is providing. Which is why so many warning signs are flashing red.

The unhinged assaults on federal agencies and employees by the chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk are unsettling enough. But Trump’s most damaging mistake has been his policy on tariffs — a chaotic and confusing series of edicts that seem to change daily.

“Economists have turned gloomier on the economic outlook amid Mr. Trump’s dizzying approach to tariffs, which has fueled considerable uncertainty and hamstrung businesses considering new investments and hiring,” writes the New York Times. “The concern is that the ongoing volatility chills this activity even further, intensifying an economic slowdown that is already underway.”

Trump actually made matters worse when he went on Fox News last Sunday and lapsed into reality TV “keep ‘em guessing” mode. Asked by host Maria Bartiromo to reassure Americans that there would be no recession, he pointedly declined, saying: “I hate to predict things like that.” When Bartiromo told Trump that investors and consumers were seeking “clarity,” he provided the opposite: “We may go up with some tariffs. It depends. We may go up. I don’t think we’ll go down, but we may go up.”

The markets reacted immediately with dismay.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 890 points, or 2.1%, while the larger S&P index plunged 2.75% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq skidded by 4%.

The markets continued to slide after Trump doubled down on threats to increase levies on Canadian steel and aluminum.

“The stock market is losing confidence in the Trump 2.0 policies,” the prominent investment adviser Ed Yardeni told CNN. “Everything is at risk now, mostly because of the administration’s rush to establish so many objectives in a very short period of time — with unintended consequences.”

The stock market is only one measure of the economic mood, but other indexes are also gloomy — consumer confidence is dropping, too — and the turmoil over tariffs is aggravated by the larger context of a mercurial, even manic, president.

David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, said on CNN that the economy is suffering from an “uncertainty tax” caused by federal spending cuts and mass layoffs of federal workers, as well as tariffs.

“Right now, a lot of businesspeople are like deer in headlights. That’s a very dangerous place to be,” he said.

The Economist points to another cause for alarm: the “dawning realization that Mr. Trump is less bound by constraints than investors had expected. … Few businesspeople want to speak truth to power for fear of drawing Mr. Trump’s ire.

And so the president and reality seem to be drifting ever further apart. … The world economy is at a dangerous moment.”

The Trump presidency is also at a dangerous moment. He has to deal with the immutable truths of the real world, not the fantastical fibs of reality TV.

Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail. com.