At 100 days, Trump 2.0 is in trouble

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. The Editors, the Wall Street Journal 4 min Read 29 Apr 2025, 07:23 AM ist Trump’s second term, characterized by rates and Ukraine peace push, the risk of economic damage and global distrust, which need urgent policy institution. Summary The tariff shock he has unleashed can sink its second term. Presidential second terms are rarely successful, and on the testimony of his first 100 days, Donald Trump will not be different. The president needs a major breakdown if he wants to save his last years from the economic and foreign policy shocks he has unleashed. His energy or ambition is not denied. Mr. Trump is pushing on several fronts, and he has succeeded. Its expansion of US energy production goes well and is much needed after the Biden War against fossil fuels. He ended the border crisis in short order. He is also returning federal assaults on mainstream American values ​​-as by polying racial favors. Mr. Trump was elected to counteract the excessiveness of the left on climate, culture and censorship, and he does. On other priorities, the execution did not match the promises. It seems that it applies to Doge, which we supported, but was so frenetic that it is not clear what it achieves. Easy targets such as USAID provide symbolic victories, but no fundamental change in government growth. The Trump budget will offer more reform proposals if the White House can get them through the congress. He badly needs a pro-growth tax account. Even about popular causes, one problem was unnecessarily excess. Harvard and other universities need to change, but try to dictate their curriculum and faculty choices are an intrusion on free speech and the defeat in court. His deportation of criminals is worth it, but denying the proper process and playing with the courts will make the effort. It seems that the White House motto is that if something is worth doing, it is worth doing too much. This is especially true of rates that can make his presidency sink. Mr. Trump is preferred to control inflation and increase real income, but rates do the opposite. They guarantee at least a one -time rise in prices on imported goods that will flow through the economy. It contains shortages to consumers, and for businesses that source goods and components from abroad. The rates are the biggest economic policy shock since Richard Nixon Bretton Woods blew up in 1971, which unleashed inflation that Nixon tried to stop with wage and price control and a tariff. The economic consequences probably doomed the second term of Nixon, perhaps just as much as water holes. It is a mistake to think that the tariff damage is only domestic. The Willy-Nilly Assault on Friends and Foes has shaken global confidence in US reliability. Ken Griffin, the investor and great donor to Mr. Trump, summarized it last week as a self-inflicted blow to the US brand. The US is unnecessarily emphasizing global economic leadership. China is already utilized by ending US allies as a more reliable giant market. This will make it much more difficult to set up a trading alliance to stop China’s predator economic behavior. Mr. Last week, Trump called us ‘China Loving’, which should amuse Beijing. Trump’s rates on allies are the right gift to Xi Jinping. There are signs that Mr. Trump eventually recognizes some of the tariff risks, as he is now talking about about 200 trading transactions. He also says he would unilaterally lower his 145% rate on Chinese imports. We want nothing better than seeing a haven – a ‘mitterrand moment’, as we wrote last week about the turnaround by the French socialist in the eighties. But Mr. Trump remains a long way to make such a pivot, and these trading transactions will not be easy to strike. Trump’s second -term foreign policy so far is a job going on. After the timeliness of Joe Biden, he tries to regain the Middle East’s lanes of the Houthi’s. And he restores ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran to abandon its nuclear program. These are hopeful signs. The main cause of alarm is his unilateral pursuit of peace in Ukraine. Until this weekend, he barely said a discouraging word about Vladimir Putin, while printing Ukraine to make concessions that could condemn it to future wonder. Many will hang on the details of a ceasefire, if there is one, and not just for the future of Europe. Joe Biden’s refuge from Afghanistan has destroyed US deterrence. A debacle in Ukraine would do the same for Mr. Trump, with consequences for Iran, North Korea and especially Chinese ambitions in the Pacific. Don’t be surprised if China decides to pull the outer islands of Taiwan or try a partial blockade. Mr. Trump told us in October that he would respond to such a provocation with rates, but he plays all that card without success. Voters have Mr. Trump partly re -elected, partly because they remembered his first term economy. But that success was mainly due to his pursuit of conventional GOP priorities such as tax reform and deregulation. He is enjoying his trade and foreign policy obsessions, and the early results are negative. He will fail unless he takes into account the warnings. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Donald Trump #US Economy Mint Specials