TOI Correspondent from Washington: Pilloried for playing golf while the stock market burned, MAGA supremo Donald Trump tee-d off with claims of an “economic revolution” that has “already” brought in more than $5 trillion investment into the United States.
The US President’s high talk came despite America’s top 500 firms bleeding almost the same quantity,$ 5 trillion, in investment worth in a document two-day damage. The crushing punch, arising from what most analysts see as a tax mistake, is causing popular disquiet– including among some Republicans and even some MAGA faithful– as millions of retirees have seen their savings vanish.
The US stock market, in which some 60 per cent of American families are investment, has now lost$ 11 trillion since January 20. The word” Black Monday” is then trending on social media amid worries of more collapse when markets open after the trip.
But Trump doubled down Saturday on his tax strategy, insisting that” China has been hit much harder than the USA, never yet close”, even as Beijing taunted Washington over the trade conflict it has launched after imposing retaliatory tariffs, saying it has “decided to boycott the export of dual-use items from China to 16 US entities”. Typically, Washington believes it has superior high-end dual-use tech that it wants to keep away from China.
Trump meanwhile continued to take aim at not just China but the world at large. ” They ( China ), and many other nations, have treated us unsustainably badly. We have been the dumb and helpless’ whipping post,’ but not any longer. We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before”, he posted on his Truth Social platform, telling Americans, “HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic”.
Indeed, history is what scores of economic savants and analysts drew on to argue that such a tariff gambit had never succeeded and instead had brought grief to the US. But Trump deployed his White House team to amplify his narrative that the world has been ripping off America for the past 40 years and it is time to recoup manufacturing jobs that have been” stolen” from the US.
However, their thesis that the US trade deficit stemming from uncontrolled imports into America constitutes a” transfer of wealth” and money” stolen” from the US was laughed out of the ceaseless tv and social media discourse on the issue that has inflamed the world.
” We are basically punishing other countries for selling stuff to us that WE want. And now we want THEM to buy our stuff even if they don’t want to”, one American financial analyst said amid a blizzard of critical tv commentary. Peter Schiff, a long-time critic of American policy, suggested it is the US which has been ripping off the world “because we consume what they produce and in return give them paper money”– reference to the dollar’s status as a reserve currency and other countries buying US debt to keep it afloat. Many analysts have also accused the Trump White House of mischaracterizing and misrepresenting tariffs imposed by other countries.
Trump aides spread out on TV shows to complain of trade barriers that many countries, including India, have instituted against US goods. Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick was among those who maintained there was no scientific basis for restricting GM crops and phytosanitary requirements other countries have instituted, even though the US did exactly the same when it came to import of mangoes from India.
