The Last Recession Wasn’t Trump’s Fault. The Next One Will Be—Utterly.

Trump is following one of the Republican Party’s longstanding traditions: Burning the economy to the ground.

About once a month, 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.

This is still the minority view among such people. But I follow all this enough to be able to tell you that this is a shift. Cooperman, a former Goldman Sachs CEO, cites oil prices that look like they’ll stay elevated for a while. Shilling notes that consumers are nervous—retail spending and consumer confidence are way down.

Different people will cite different reasons, I suppose, but there’s really only one reason for all this, and his name is Donald J. Trump.

Every decision he makes is the wrong one and makes the situation worse. 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 GDP by .4 percent, and more.

Let’s check in on the war with Iran. Everybody knows what that conflict has done to gas prices, fertilizer prices, and trade. What’s new is that over the weekend, Trump rejected Iran’s latest offer to return to the table and end the war in seven days. He........

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