{"id":5109,"date":"2025-04-08T12:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T12:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/5109\/"},"modified":"2025-04-08T12:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T12:11:10","slug":"even-trump-supporters-fear-his-tariffs-will-cripple-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/5109\/","title":{"rendered":"Even Trump supporters fear his tariffs will cripple America"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON DC \u2013 US President Donald Trump<\/a> spent the weekend urging his fellow Americans to \u201cHANG TOUGH\u201d in the face of the reverberating economic crisis sparked by his decision to declare a global trade war. But as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets<\/a> of towns and cities across the country to protest against his administration\u2019s various policies, Republicans on Capitol Hill joined the nation\u2019s corporate titans in becoming increasingly antsy about Trump\u2019s trade brinksmanship<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The two-day rout that erased over $6 trillion(\u00a34.66trn) in market value shows no sign of abating, as the President spent the weekend golfing in Florida and doubling down on what he characterised on social media as his \u201cECONOMIC REVOLUTION\u201d. That phrase underscores the fact that Trump is not only using a protectionist playbook to steer economic policy down a path that the United States has eschewed since the 1930s. He is also throwing out decades of Republican Party orthodoxy about the benefits of free trade and the evils of trade barriers. <\/p>\n

\"PresidentTrump arrives at Trump National Golf Club in Florida on Sunday (Photo: Alex Brandon\/ AP)<\/p>\n

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is among those prominent Republicans clinging to Ronald Reagan\u2019s belief that \u2013 as the former President put it in his 1967 Inaugural Address<\/a> when he was sworn in as Governor of California \u2013 \u201cfreedom is a fragile thing and it\u2019s never more than one generation away from extinction\u201d. Like Reagan, Cruz argues that trade barriers are antithetical to America\u2019s economic health, and a direct threat to the freedoms that Republicans have traditionally held dear. <\/p>\n

On Friday\u2019s edition of his podcast, Cruz warned Republicans<\/a> that any extended use of tariffs as a governing proposition in the realm of trade would lead to the party being wiped out in next year\u2019s mid-term elections. \u201cThere are voices within the administration that want to see these tariffs continue for ever and ever\u201d, he said, without naming Trump. But, he insisted, a full-blown trade war \u201cwould destroy jobs here at home and do real damage to the American economy\u2026. I want \u2018Liberation Day\u2019 to succeed. But success means lower tariffs both here and abroad\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"WASHINGTON,Republican senator Ted Cruz is becoming increasingly concerned about Trump\u2019s trade brinksmanship\u00a0(Photo: Win McNamee\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Cruz is not the only Republican threatening to break with the White House. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, normally a vigorous Trump defender, told Fox News on Friday<\/a> that \u201cwe\u2019re in uncharted waters\u201d and that the President\u2019s approach was risky. \u201cTariffs are like whisky\u201d, he told Fox. \u201cA little whisky under the right circumstances can be refreshing. Too much whisky under the wrong circumstances, and you end up drunk as a goat\u201d. <\/p>\n

But all of that ignores Trump\u2019s insistence that he\u2019s leading not only a trade war, but a broader policy revolution. Last Wednesday, as he unveiled his plan to tariff virtually every other country and territory<\/a> on earth, Trump spoke wistfully about America in the 1880s, describing the United States of that era as \u201ca tariff country\u2026 so wealthy, in fact, that they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were collecting\u201d. As he has done in the past, Trump even posited the idea of eventually scrapping income tax, and funding the government entirely out of tariff revenues, an idea that the vast majority of respected economists dismiss as fanciful.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"***Protesters attend a rally to demonstrate against Trump on the National Mall in Washington DC on Saturday (Photo: Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s senior lieutenants spent the weekend making entirely false claims about the state of the economy that they inherited from former President Joe Biden. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was ubiquitous on television<\/a>, insisting falsely that America was in a \u201cdepression\u201d when Trump took over and that the economy \u201cwas in a state of calamity and catastrophe\u201d.<\/p>\n

In fact, when Trump took office in January unemployment was at 4 per cent (versus 4.2 per cent last month) and the country secured 2.8 per cent of GDP growth during Biden\u2019s final year in office. In light of Trump\u2019s policies, investment bank Goldman Sachs has cut its growth forecast<\/a> for this year to a pitiful 1 per cent and now says there is 35 per cent chance that America will enter a recession, up from its earlier forecast of 20 per cent. \u201cThe risk from\u2026 tariffs is greater than many market participants have previously assumed\u201d, the bank warned.<\/p>\n

Key to Trump\u2019s \u201crevolution\u201d are not only tariffs, but also the tax cuts that the President argues will stimulate economic growth and help the country navigate the current turmoil. On Friday, Republicans in the Senate took the first steps<\/a> in advancing the President\u2019s agenda. But Kennedy argued that it could still take until the middle of May for the full package of legislation to reach the President\u2019s desk. That suggests more than a month of Wall Street\u2019s roller-coaster lies ahead.<\/p>\n

While the White House insists that the President is focused on Main Street instead, there is a direct connection between the two thoroughfares. Millions of Americans will have spent the weekend reviewing their retirement and college savings accounts \u2013 all tied up in the stock market \u2013 and evaluating the scale of their losses. Hundreds of thousands of them also took to the streets to join the largest protests so far against the administration. Trump\u2019s revolution hinges on the nation agreeing to \u201cHANG TOUGH\u201d, but its patience is already being put to a very costly test. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON DC \u2013 US President Donald Trump spent the weekend urging his fellow Americans to \u201cHANG TOUGH\u201d in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[32,1700,12,2861,479,2862,659,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-5109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-republican-party","12":"tag-tariffs","13":"tag-us-politics","14":"tag-usa","15":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114302280451589668","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}