Trump Doesn’t Care If He Wrecks the Global Economy

What started with tariffs has escalated with the Iran war. He’s playing a giant game of chicken, and everyone will lose.

On Monday, President Trump gathered more than 100 small-business leaders in the East Wing of the White House to take a victory lap. His return to the White House had resulted in “record business,” he said. The tax and regulatory cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the legislative centerpiece of his second term, were already a huge success. The economy was “roaring.” Everything was going phenomenally, unbelievably, historically well.

It didn’t take long for Trump’s own allies to start sniping to the media. Within a few hours, Politico reported that some of the president’s advisers were rolling their eyes at his comments. Touting the economy was simply not going to cut it as a message to win the midterms, they said. “Everybody is pretty realistic about the fact that holding the House is going to be extremely difficult,” said one person granted anonymity. “Every day the war goes on, every day gas prices hover around five bucks, it makes it less and less likely, and it’s already very unlikely.”

That’s more or less right. Thanks to Trump’s war in Iran, the average price of a gallon of gas nationwide is nearly $4.50, up from about $3.15 a year ago, and indeed is hovering around $5 in some Upper Midwest and West Coast states. This comes after the president’s tariffs had already caused a massive spike in prices. Though some of those tariffs were invalidated by the Supreme Court, Trump continues to push new ones: Last week, he announced a 25 percent tax on cars and trucks from the European Union.

Trump is stuck in a quagmire in Iran, and he knows it. That’s why he........

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