During the 2024 presidential election campaign, Donald Trump made sweeping economic proposals to address an issue that ranked at the top of voters’ concerns. “Starting on Day 1, we will end inflation and make America affordable again,” he said at a campaign event in August.
Trump’s flurry of promises to improve the economy is primarily considered to have boosted him in the election. But now that he’s president, Trump has changed his tune on the immediacy of the effect his economic plans will have.
For one thing, as CNBC reported, inflation is still high:
The consumer price index, a broad measure of costs in goods and services across the U.S. economy, accelerated a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 3%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. They were higher than the respective Dow Jones estimates for 0.3% and 2.9%. The annual rate was 0.1 percentage point higher than December.
After the report was released Wednesday, Trump quickly blamed his predecessor. “BIDEN INFLATION UP!” he posted on Truth Social.
Several factors play into rising costs, and it cannot solely be blamed on Trump — or former President Joe Biden, for that matter. But experts have said that Trump’s economic proposals, such as tax cuts and tariffs, may exacerbate inflation.
Trump’s attempts to lower the expectations that he set on the campaign trail began shortly after he won. In a Time magazine interview in late November, Trump said he would “like to” bring down the price of groceries but added, “It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will.” Since returning to office, the Trump White House has also tried to downplay his promises. Vice President JD Vance told CBS News last month that “it’s going to take a little bit of time” for grocery prices to decrease. “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Vance said. Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the president is “doing everything he can” to reduce high consumer prices in the U.S. But when asked how long that might take and whether Americans would have the patience to wait for the administration’s moves to take effect, she said, “I don’t have a timeline.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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