Before his second term began, President Donald Trump said that tariffs were “not going to be a cost to you, it’s going to be a cost to another country.” He said they will make a “great economy.” He said they “will MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN.”
That was the plan, anyway.
Trump is a good salesman, and he has found buyers for a lot of junk over the years, from steaks to supplements to degrees from Trump University. But this time the sales job is failing. Though many voters unfortunately believed his pitch through the 2024 presidential election, more and more of the public has figured out that tariffs don’t work the way Trump claims, especially when they’re so haphazard and unpredictable that what the administration is doing can barely be called a “policy.” Remarkably, they have reached those conclusions even before tariffs really start to increase prices, empty shop shelves and hurt the wider economy. When that happens, a bad start for Trump 2.0 could become a political catastrophe.
The MAGA faithful may still trust the president on the economy, but the rest of the country doesn’t.
Already, most Americans don’t trust Trump’s handling of the economy. Only 35% of respondents in a CNN poll approved of his handling of tariffs. An ABC News/Washington Post poll put the number at 34%, with 7 in 10 people saying tariffs will drive up inflation. An NPR/PBS/Marist poll pegged approval of Trump’s handling of the economy as a whole at 39%, while a Reuters/Ipsos poll had him at 37% on that question. Consumer confidence has dropped to its lowest level since the start of the Covid pandemic. In other words, the MAGA faithful may still trust the president on the economy, but the rest of the country doesn’t.One didn’t have to be familiar with those numbers to get the picture from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent flailing in a Tuesday morning news conference as he tried to reconcile all the contradictory impulses and goals of the president’s ever-changing tariff policy. Bessent claimed that Trump was cleverly deploying “strategic uncertainty” to keep other countries off guard. “I think that tariffs will bring back American manufacturing and generate substantial revenues,” he added.
But it’s impossible to negotiate with someone who won’t say what he wants from other countries or keeps changing those asks. Even the two goals Bessent stated are in direct conflict. If tariffs bring back American manufacturing, that means consumers will be buying American-made goods, which means less tariff revenue. If they bring in substantial revenues, it means consumers are continuing to buy foreign-made goods and American manufacturing languishes.
Even a statement of fact about how tariffs generate revenue is enough to send the administration into a rage. Early Tuesday morning, Punchbowl News reported that Amazon would follow other companies in showing customers exactly how much increased prices are the result of the administration’s tariffs. Such a move would be very public evidence against the administration’s contention that tariffs generate revenue not as costs passed on to consumers, but as money from thin air. At Tuesday’s news conference, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded with characteristic vitriol. “I just got off the phone with the president about Amazon’s announcement,” she told reporters, “This is a hostile and political act by Amazon.” According to NBC News, Trump even made a personal call to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to complain about the report. The company later said that it had considered breaking out tariff charges on its low-priced Amazon Haul site, but decided against it. At least Bezos and his businesses won’t be targeted for revenge by Trump (for now). Amid his verbal squirming in Tuesday’s news conference, Bessent offered a perhaps unintended revelation. But no amount of spin will matter if Americans see the effects of the tariffs in their own lives. While nothing is certain and economic conditions can always change, it sure looks like we’re headed for bad times. Bookings on container ships coming to the U.S. have already dropped significantly, suggesting the possibility of shortages; the Port of Los Angeles says shipping volume will be down 35% starting next week. Business investment is “paralyzed,” write Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian of the Yale School of Management, as companies wait to see whether the tariffs will go up or down, or just disappear. Investment firm Apollo Global Management now forecasts a chain of events — imports slowing, trucking company layoffs, empty shelves and consumer pullback — that culminates in a recession by this summer. Major Wall Street firms place the chance of a recession this year between 40% and 65%. Amid his verbal squirming in Tuesday’s news conference, Bessent offered a perhaps unintended revelation. “President Trump is interested in the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past,” the secretary said. “We don’t need to necessarily have a booming textile industry like where I grew up again, but we do want to have precision manufacturing and bring that back.” But textiles and other low-cost goods that rely on cheap foreign labor are subject to Trump’s tariffs, which means higher prices for consumers even if Americans won’t ever make those products again. And while precision manufacturing is great, it tends to be much more automated, which requires a smaller number of highly skilled employees. That means Americans won’t be working in that kind of factory by the tens of millions. In other words, Bessent accidentally summed up the effects of Trump’s tariffs: we’ll pay higher prices, but get little in return. Even before we feel the worst of it, Americans already understand. They aren’t happy and, if a recession comes, Trump will really feel their wrath.
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author focused on politics and culture. 
