Voters returned Donald Trump to the White House in November believing he would be better for the economy than his opponent, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Yet 100 days into Trump’s second presidential term, voters now face an economic landscape rife with uncertainty.
Among its attributes: recession odds of as high as 60%, inflation rates that have barely budged and a stock market that, until recently, was beset by volatility.
At issue is Trump’s tariffs strategy.
Though he said throughout his campaign that he planned to impose tariffs on goods brought into the United States, consumers and businesses alike have reacted with shock at what Trump has implemented and the speed with which he has done it: a 10%-across-the-board tariff, 25% duties on autos and auto parts and steel and aluminum products, and duties of as high as 145% on goods from China, the third-largest source of imports into the United States behind the European Union and Mexico.
“A lot of economic policy has been made in these first 100 days — more than any other administration I can think of,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics.
The tariffs rollout has also been marked by starts and stops, with different rationales offered up for each duty and tariff levels sometimes changing within a single day.
To this day, Trump’s tariffs plan continues to evolve. He has paused the country-by-country tariffs he announced in his “Liberation Day” Rose Garden ceremony this month, which he said has prompted hundreds of countries to approach the United States about signing new trade deals.
And on Tuesday, in a speech marking the first 100 days of his second term, he also softened some of the tariffs on cars and auto parts. During a rally in Warren, Michigan, Trump called it “the most successful first 100 days of administration in the history of our country.”
Overall, the rollout of the tariffs and the uncertainty it has created have caused significant economic and financial turbulence.
Take high prices, which were top of mind for many voters in November. The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of price growth remains stuck at about 2.5%. While that is within range of historical averages, it is above the central bank’s official 2% goal. Grocery price growth surged in the initial weeks of Trump’s administration amid soaring egg costs, but they have since come down.
Still, across-the-board 10% tariffs Trump has placed on imports to the United States, along with other duties on countries like China and Mexico from which the United States imports food, could raise grocery costs further, some experts say.
Gas prices, too, have remained at Biden-era levels. Airfare prices have fallen — though that is largely a function of reduced demand as consumers pull back on nonessential spending.
While mortgage rates have declined year on year, the pace of home sales is glacial, and in March — the start of a usually busy spring season for the real estate industry — sales of previously owned homes fell to their slowest rate since 2009.
NBC News’ home price affordability index has in the first three months of Trump’s second term shown modest improvement in consumers’ ability to buy homes, but it remains far above its pre-pandemic levels.
As for stocks, the S&P 500 has lost about 8% since Jan. 20.
Some data has held up. Retail sales have remained brisk, while the unemployment rate is steady at about 4.2%.
Barclays financial group said Monday that its daily credit card transaction data, as well as job-openings trends, “thus far show little cause for concern about U.S. activity.”
“The most recent momentum in spending and new-job postings is about in line with — and never far below — point-in-time comparisons with prior years,” the firm said.
Overall, it is difficult to find a measure of economic activity that has improved dramatically since Trump’s second term began. And while many data points show the economy hanging on for now, there has been significant deterioration in business and consumer sentiment and outlook. While such surveys do not always translate into slower economic growth, they suggest even rougher conditions may lie ahead.
Nearly every measure of consumer confidence tracked by Wall Street firms, including the more conservative-leaning National Federation of Independent Business’ monthly survey of smaller businesses, has shown a decline in economic optimism.
“The implementation of new policy priorities has heightened the level of uncertainty among small business owners over the past few months,” the federation’s chief economist, Bill Dunkelberg, said in a statement this month. “Small business owners have scaled back expectations on sales growth as they better understand how these rearrangements might impact them.”
The University of Michigan’s consumer confidence survey has likewise plunged, showing the largest three-month decline since the 1990s.
“Expectations worsened for vast swaths of the population across age, education, income, and political affiliation,” survey director Joanne Hsu said in a statement.
“Consumers perceived risks to multiple aspects of the economy, in large part due to ongoing uncertainty around trade policy and the potential for a resurgence of inflation looming ahead. Labor market expectations remained bleak. Even more concerning for the path of the economy, consumers anticipated weaker income growth for themselves in the year ahead.”
Some uptick in economic activity could simply be the result of consumers’ and businesses’ trying to get ahead of tariffs by stocking up on goods for their households or inventory for their businesses as tariffs bear down, experts say.
“There’s a front-running effect,” said Bob Elliott, CEO of Unlimited Funds investment group. “You hear a lot of anecdotal stories related to that — like auto demand, there’s been a lot of pulled-forward auto demand,” he said, referring to consumers shopping for new vehicles currently on dealership lots that are not subject to Trump’s tariffs. “But even smaller-scale items, we’re seeing indications of pre-buying on worries that price rises are ahead.”
The latest edition of the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book survey of economic conditions in the United States shows cracks starting to form, especially in sectors and regions that depend on foreign tourism, which has fallen off sharply as Trump has ramped up his immigration crackdowns at U.S. borders.
“Large attractions that normally draw international visitors saw a drop in travelers from abroad, particularly Canada, and airports and airlines reported a notable decline in foreign passengers to the U.S.,” the Atlanta Fed said.
In a statement, a White House spokesman noted there had actually been negative month-on-month inflation in March’s Consumer Price Index — meaning that on average, a typical price declined from February. The spokesman, Kush Desai, also pointed to investment commitments from firms like Apple, Nvidia and Hyundai designed to reshore manufacturing back to the United States.
“President Trump’s America First policies are delivering much-needed economic relief for everyday Americans while laying the groundwork for a long-term restoration of American Greatness,” Desai said.
And at a news conference marking Trump’s first 100 days, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt waved off any concerns about the economy.
“The actual data has been quite good,” Bessent said. “The job data is good, [and] Americans keep spending.”
“Trust in President Trump,” Leavitt said when a reporter asked how Americans should be thinking about this period of economic turmoil. “There is a reason he was re-elected to this office. It’s because of the historic success of his economic formula in the first term.”
It is not the tariffs themselves that have created the troublesome economic environment, said David Seif, chief economist at Nomura Holdings financial group. Rather, it is the uncertainty that has accompanied their imposition that is preventing businesses from spending and hiring and allowing the economy to settle back onto a more stable footing.
For any concerns Trump may have about how Americans view his performance on the economy, there are ways he can regain positive momentum, Seif said. If Trump manages to dial back his ambitions or finds a way to stand down from his more provocative stances, the memories of the initial months of his second term could fade fast.
“Uncertainty is the worst aspect of all of this,” Seif said. “If a plan were announced today, as long as it was seen as a totally definitive thing, that would allow companies to start investing again.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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