US President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House on the South Lawn in Washington, DC, US, September 26, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
In 2024, President Donald Trump was elected largely because voters hoped his background in business would equip him to help bring down prices. But by September of 2026, writes the New Republic editor Michael Tomasky, the myth of “so-called businessman” Trump’s financial acumen has been destroyed as a growing number of experts admit that his policies have a recession on the way.
“About once a month,” explains Tomasky, “I go to Google News and type in the single word ‘recession’ just to see what comes up. Most of the time, the headlines are reassuring: ‘Despite downturn, experts don’t see recession coming’ — that sort of thing. Sunday, the headlines read a little differently. ‘Is the World Staring at a Big Stock Market Crash — and Recession? 5 Uneasy Signs.’ ‘The Fed Just Raised Interest Rates. Recession Is Next.’ ‘Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman sees a recession in 2027 and a stock drop ahead.’ ‘Legendary economist Gary Shilling says consumer signals point to a recession in the next 12 months.’ And so on.” While many factors can contribute to a recession, according to Tomasky, the driving force behind the current economic decline is obvious: the whole thing has been caused by Trump.
“Every decision he makes is the wrong one and makes the situation worse,” writes Tomasky. “Take the tariffs. The Tax Foundation keeps track of the economic impact of the tariffs Trump promised would ‘liberate’ us. Short answer? They’ve been a disaster. They increased taxes on the average American household by $1,000 in 2025, will reduce long-run gross domestic product by 0.4 percent, and more.” Then there’s the war with Iran, which has wrought wide-ranging economic damage. Even so, Trump has just rejected Iran’s latest offer for negotiations and to end the war within seven days, apparently because he thinks he can secure a better deal.
According to Tomasky, the list of Trump’s economic missteps goes on, but it all comes down to one thing: “Trump is wrecking the economy. And he’s wrecking the economy for the same reason that most Republican presidents wreck the economy.” As Tomasky explains, ever since the GOP began emphasizing unregulated markets in the 1970s, Republican presidents have consistently presided over “economic calamities,” with five of six seeing the economy crumble under their watch. According to Tomasky, “It’s not a coincidence that the last five recessions, and seven of the last eight, have happened under Republican presidents.”
“The reason is that they believe in economic nostrums that are either lies or fairy tales,” asserts Tomasky. “Lie: that lower taxes can produce revenues equal to or even greater than higher taxes. Fairy tale: that the unregulated free market will unfailingly find solutions to society’s problems. As we’re seeing right now with cryptocurrencies and AI, the unregulated free market of the sort we have in this country now creates more problems than it solves.”
While Trump’s previous term saw one such economic calamity, it was caused in large part by pandemic pressures beyond his control. But as experts are once again warning that recession looms, this time, concludes Tomasky, “it will be entirely on him. He may have driven the country into the ditch, but at least he will have exploded the ‘we need a businessman’ myth.”