President Donald Trump attends an event at the White House in Washington, D.C., February 23, 2026.
President Donald Trump and his administration can no longer cling to the idea that their biggest disaster were out of their hands, as a new piece from MS NOW argued that, unlike presidents past, Trump's woes are largely "self-inflicted."
Writing for the outlet on Wednesday morning, reporter James Downie highlighted a recent comment from Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent while introducing a new round of sanctions against Iran: "Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?"
"Bessent may think that’s still a self-evidently ridiculous question," Downie wrote. "George W. Bush didn’t want a Great Financial Crisis, nor did Herbert Hoover seek to start a Great Depression. Surely no White House would deliberately hurt the global economy. Yet for the first time ever, that’s not the case. At home and abroad, the past few days have laid bare the extent to which President Trump’s troubles on the economy are self-inflicted."
Citing the example of the most recent bond market scare in reaction to the national debt passing $40 trillion, Downie wrote that the ominous milestone is the fault of the sweeping tax cuts Trump pushed for in both of his terms, with help from one of his GOP predecessors. As another recent MS NOW piece from tax expert Bobby Kogan argued, "it is a mathematical truth that had the [George W.] Bush and Trump tax cuts never been enacted, the U.S. debt ratio would be declining indefinitely."
Trump's recent announcement that he would be allowing 300,00 tons of ground beef into the country without tariffs, Downie continued, was also an open admission about the truth behind his tariff agenda: that American consumers foot the bill for them, not the countries exporting goods into the U.S.
On two of its biggest disasters, Iran and the Canada trade war, the administration cannot even claim to be trying to "mitigate the damage."
"The human toll of the Iran war is terrible enough: tens of thousands of Iranians and nearly 800 U.S. service members killed or wounded," Downie explained. "With the president bored and frustrated at being unable to bomb his way to peace, the administration is betting on new sanctions – and threats of new sanctions against other countries – to secure Tehran’s capitulation. But the Strait of Hormuz is not open, oil prices are still high, and the knock-on effects are spreading beyond the gas pump. 'Companies say they are raising prices on products ranging from french fries and beer to paint and packaging to offset their own rising commodity and freight costs,' the Wall Street Journal reported last month."
He added: "At the same time, the White House has restarted its trade war with Canada. The two countries announced billions in new tariffs, which will make products more expensive on both sides of the border. Though the U.S. may be far larger, as economist Paul Krugman wrote, 'the U.S. economy is far more dependent on Canadian goods than most Americans realize.' For instance, Canada exports millions of barrels a day of oil to the upper Midwest and enough electricity to power some two million homes in Maine – to pick but two examples that may affect key Senate races."
