Bloomberg editorial: Trump’s 'puzzling economic agenda' will make inflation even worse

15 May 2024

While facing four criminal indictments, presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has been aggressively campaigning on the economy — especially inflation, which he is blaming incumbent President Joe Biden for. And that messaging may be working: some polls released in May have found Trump with narrow single-digit leads, while others show Biden slightly ahead.

Recent polls in swing states, especially those in the Sun Belt, are showing Trump with an advantage.

But in an editorial published on May 14, Bloomberg News' editorial board warns that Trump's proposals would be terrible for the U.S. economy if he returns to the White House in January 2025.

"Whoever wins November's election," Bloomberg's editorial board argues, "inflation will present them with an immediate challenge…. It's a bit puzzling, then, that former President Donald Trump's economic agenda seems to be dedicated to raising prices."

Trump's proposals, the editorial board notes, include "tariffs of 60 percent on Chinese-made products and 10 percent on other imports" as well as "devaluing" the U.S. dollar. And Trump has toyed with the idea of a hands-on policy with the U.S. Federal Reserve.

All of this, according to the editorial, is a recipe for increasing "the cost of imported goods and inputs for domestic producers."

"Some caveats are in order," Bloomberg's editorial board explains. "Trump doesn’t always mean what he says…. But what do you get, all else equal, when you add much higher tariffs, a politicized central bank, a deliberately weakened currency and an enormous surge in public borrowing, at a time of already-elevated inflation? It would be best to not find out."

Read Bloomberg News' full editorial at this link.

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