Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday hammered President Trump and congressional Republicans with accusations that they’re tanking the financial system within the identify of boosting it.
The Democratic chief famous that the president’s central marketing campaign theme was a promise to carry down the price of client staples. As a substitute, he charged, the president’s plan to impose a spherical of recent tariffs on Wednesday — what Trump has dubbed “Liberation Day” — will just do the other.
“Home Republicans, Senate Republicans and Donald Trump have not accomplished a single factor to decrease the price of dwelling on this nation. Not a single invoice. Not a single govt order. Not a single administrative motion,” Jeffries advised reporters within the Capitol.
“In fact, Republicans are crashing the American economy in real time and driving us to a recession. This is not liberation day, it’s recession day,” he continued.
“That’s what the Trump tariffs are going to do: crash the economy.”
On the marketing campaign path, Trump and his Republican allies had bashed the Biden administration over the financial system, blaming the Democrats for the inflationary pattern that accompanied the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Trump, a rich actual property mogul, vowed to make use of his enterprise expertise to alleviate the stress on shoppers instantly.
“Starting on Day 1, we will end inflation and make America affordable again,” he stated throughout an August occasion.
But Trump’s erratic financial prescriptions — together with an on-again-off-again tariff coverage — have destabilized markets, rattling buyers, sinking client confidence and inflicting a pointy drop within the inventory market.
A brand new ballot from Marquette Regulation College revealed that, whereas Republicans price the financial system higher beneath Trump than Biden, a majority of GOP voters nonetheless think about the present financial system to be “not so good” or “poor.”
The numbers haven’t discouraged Trump, who’s pushing forward together with his formidable tariff coverage. On Wednesday afternoon, he’s scheduled to unveil his most expansive tariffs so far, that are anticipated to focus on even a few of America’s closest allies and largest buying and selling companions.
Trump says the transfer is important to rectify what he considers many years of commerce imbalances which have deprived the U.S.
“We helped everybody, and they don’t help us,” Trump stated earlier this week.
Democrats produce other concepts, warning that the extra prices to companies will merely be handed alongside to shoppers.
“Costs aren’t going down in America, they’re going up,” Jeffries said Wednesday. “And the Trump tariffs are going to make things more costly.”
