U.S. President Donald Trump speaks next to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (not pictured) and European leaders amid negotiations to end the Russian war in Ukraine, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 18, 2025. REUTERS/Al Drago
Criticism of President Donald Trump's economic policies is coming from both the left and the right. Liberal economists like Paul Krugman and Robert Reich are warning that Trump's steep new tariffs and efforts to undermine the independence of the U.S. Federal Reserve could lead to inflation and a painful recession, and Never Trump conservatives — from MSNBC's Joe Scarborough to attorney George Conway to The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson — view Trump's economic ideas as a radical departure from the Reagan/Goldwater conservatism of the past.
Some economists even fear a return to stagflation, the painful combination of high unemployment, inflation and economic stagnation that plagued the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In a blistering editorial published on September 5, the New York Times' editorial board warns that Trump's economic policies are not only hurting Americans — they are also jeopardizing the United States' position as a global economic leader.
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"When the United States pushed to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers in the wake of World War II," the Times' editorial board argues, "much of the world followed its lead, embracing the argument from America's leaders that increasing trade would increase prosperity. Now, as President Trump pushes to reverse that history, raising new barriers to limit imports, it is increasingly clear that the world is no longer persuaded by America's approach to economic policy ... The rest of the world is rejecting Mr. Trump's protectionism."
The U.S., the Times' journalists lament, is "walking out of the system it created."
"While other nations regret its departure, they are not inclined to follow in its self-destructive footsteps," the Times' editorial board writes. "fears of a global trade war have not materialized because the leaders of other nations have recognized what Mr. Trump seems unable to grasp — that by raising tariffs, they would be hurting their own countries."
Trump insists that his tariffs will lead to a manufacturing renaissance in the U.S., but the Times notes that "the number of Americans with factory jobs has declined by 28,000 since Mr. Trump took office" and that "domestic manufacturing" enjoyed a "period of rapid growth" under former President Joe Biden.
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Trump, according to the Times, is hurting the U.S. both domestically and globally.
"Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, summed up the prevailing mood after hosting a meeting of world leaders in July," the Times editorial board observes. "'If the United States doesn’t want to buy, we will find new partners,' he said. 'The world is big, and it’s eager to do business with Brazil.' Other nations continue to pursue the example established by the United States decades ago because they continue to see trade, managed judiciously, as a path to greater prosperity. The Trump administration, by rejecting this global consensus, has damaged both the American economy and American global leadership."
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Read the New York Times' full editorial at this link (subscription required).