Analysis: Trump pivots from populist economic campaign ideas

WASHINGTON — Almost four months into his second term, President Donald Trump has moved away from his populist campaign rhetoric to a much bolder and disruptive economic policy approach built on tariffs — even being open to a potential recession — and urging Americans to consume less.

On the campaign trail, his sales pitch focused, in large part, on extending Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts and slapping tariffs on what his team had dubbed the world’s worst actors on trade and access to economic markets. One of Trump’s 2024 campaign slogans was to “make America wealthy again” — he even devoted an entire night at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to that theme. And in rallies and interviews, he repeatedly hammered his Democratic opponents — first Joe Biden, then Kamala Harris — over inflation and higher consumer prices.

But back in the White House, Trump has slowly pivoted from his initial acknowledgment that his global import fees would cause some short-term “pain” to sounding open to the notion that the U.S. economy could slide into a recession, drawing condemnation from congressional Democrats.

On Monday, Trump’s escalating trade war with China appeared to take a pause when his administration said it would temporarily lower tariffs on Chinese-made goods from 145% to 30% for 90 days following weekend talks in Switzerland. In turn, Beijing said it would slash its 125% tariffs to 10% over the same time span. The moves were expected to help mitigate worries about price hikes — though both countries could simply raise the duties again in 90s days, so uncertainly remains for global markets.

Adding to that uncertainty: The president and his team in recent weeks also have made a number of contradictory statements and assessments.

For instance, Trump said last week that other countries and foreign-based companies are salivating at the notion of getting a piece of the U.S. consumer market. “This is the market where everyone wants to be,” the president said on May 6.

But in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that aired on May 4, the president issued a soft call for Americans to consume fewer things — which would shrink the same U.S. consumer market.

“I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five,” Trump said.

Trump has also contradicted himself on prices in recent weeks. He has claimed that grocery and gasoline prices are down, but when asked about the prices of other items rising, he told NBC, “Maybe they might.”

Trump had warned when rolling out his sweeping import duties that prices would likely would go up for a short time, creating some “pain” for American consumers. But more recently, he has told reporters he cannot say how long that “pain” might last.

A White House official late last week acknowledged that the president did not run on “economic pain.” But the same official, granted anonymity to be candid, said it was almost certain that Trump would not make a formal plea to Americans to pare down their purchases of material things.

“He’s never going to give a big speech asking the American people to buy less. He’s not going to ask them to feel pain,” the White House official said. “But the president does want people to make some sacrifices, and he said that during COVID. If you remember, back then, he called the American people warriors.”

“His vision is to bring these manufacturing jobs back home, and he thinks the people support that,” the official added.

The president’s economic pivot has, at times, thrown his West Wing staff off kilter and out of step with each other on messaging.

For instance, the same White House official said a colleague would pass along a more detailed statement about Trump’s call for Americans to consume less. The second official, however, did not do so — despite multiple requests.

In another example, White House chief economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters Friday that trade and tariffs talks with India had been “especially complex.” But a few days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said that negotiations with India had been easier than with other nations because New Delhi had applied fewer trade barriers to American-made goods.

‘In a cult’

Meantime, Trump’s contradictions on the economy and the shift away from his populist campaign rhetoric are, collectively, a big reason congressional Democrats see an economist in chief with no semblance of a strategy amid a sputtering U.S. economy.

“It has only taken Donald Trump three months to (harm) the fiscal state of this nation. Just think back to only three months ago, we had, by no means a perfect economy, but we had an economy that was growing and had been growing for four straight years. We had inflation down to the low twos, down almost exactly at target level, which would enable, and was projected would enable, the Fed to cut interest rates this year three times,” Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan F. Boyle said during a Budget Committee hearing last week.

“All of that progress and things headed in the right direction, every economist, liberal, conservative, moderate, predicting continued growth as far as the eye could see,” added Boyle, the panel’s top Democrat. “Three months later, what do we have now? Decline, a 0.3% contraction. It is projected next quarter, the quarter we are in now, will even be worse. Which means that would hit the textbook definition of a recession.”

But the White House official contended that Trump surmised upon returning to office that he needed a bolder policy to break Americans’ habit of purchasing what the official dubbed “cheap” Chinese-made goods.

“This all comes from a sense that we’ve become too reliant on cheap goods from a country, China, that has sold out American workers. The president feels like most Americans would agree with that,” the official said. “If we make more of the products, then the U.S. market would actually grow — and that would make it more attractive to other countries.”

Congressional Democrats have called on their Republican colleagues to buck Trump and push back on his global tariffs and other economic policies. But one Democratic lawmaker cast doubts on whether the majority party was up to that politically dangerous task.

“Unfortunately, they’re in a cult, that the role of Republican Congress members is mainly to parrot whatever nonsense comes out of the White House. And I’m sure that the tax breaks coming from this ‘big, beautiful bill’ will do just as little to help most working families as the alleged Trump tariff tax cut has done for them,” Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett said at the same House Budget hearing last week.

“Unfortunately, Republicans seem to have been denying themselves any free will. They’re locked in bondage to an autocrat who has boasted that he is the king of debt; and indeed he is,” Doggett added. “And as Trump’s tariffs wreck our economy and imperil so many small businesses, a number of which if he maintains his current policy, will fail this year.”