Trump Is Doing More Harm Than Good to the U.S. Economy
Rhetoric, Retaliation, and Economic Disarray in the Second Trump Term
May 30, 2025
In his second term, the MAGA King promised to rebuild American strength through tariffs, industrial nationalism, and government streamlining. But as his policies fail to take root, a growing chorus of economists, trade experts, and business leaders warn that the king may be doing more harm than good to the U.S. economy.
From unpredictable tariffs to aggressive budget cuts, analysts argue that Trump’s approach is undermining business confidence, destabilizing trade relationships, and weakening long-term growth prospects. The economy may very well be in a recession already.
Old Money & Pro-Immigrant Elites vs. New Money & No Money Nationalists: American Politics Simplified
Before we continue looking into how the MAGA King is messing up our economy, let's take a quick look at a simplified version of the history of our politics.
Once upon a time, an English king colonized American land. The king and his circle of aristocrats seized land from indigenous peoples, and granted property rights to a tightly controlled upper class. Property rights and the economic power that derives from them flowed from crown to nobility to plantation, bypassing the working class entirely. Rather than empower local laborers, the elites imported African slaves, keeping the poor both disenfranchised and dependent.
From the start, class division—not just race—defined the American experiment. The white working class was landless, voiceless, and dismissed. Over time, a new faction emerged: industrialists, merchants, and pioneers who created "new money" outside the landed elite system. These ambitious upstarts found common cause with the working poor, forming a nationalist coalition of new money and no money against the colonial aristocracy and British rule. Together, they won the Revolutionary War.
But independence did not dissolve class contempt. The old elites and their Ivy League institutions, now American institutions, sneered at the merchants, industrialists, and farmers, who they saw as crude, uncultured, and dangerously democratic. While the new American nation abolished slavery in time, the elites simply replaced forced labor with mass immigration, bringing in Europeans to fill factories and vote the "right" way.
As the industrial age turned to modernity, the divide deepened. The elites increasingly aligned themselves with global capital, open borders, and progressive politics—not out of egalitarianism, but because they preferred to manage new immigrant labor pools rather than uplift the legacy poor, which they refer to as "white trash", and "deplorables" or simply "garbage people". The rise of the welfare state, civil rights, and globalization cemented this realignment: the elites looked outward and downward, but never toward the poor white America that they detest as much as the "white trash" detest them back.
By the early 21st century, immigration patterns had shifted. The European supply had dried up, so the elites turned to Africa, Asia, and Latin America to fuel their labor and consumer demands. The white working class—left behind in small towns, factory ruins, and hollowed-out suburbs—felt replaced and once again ridiculed in the rusty dust of hard labor without valuable property rights. The political class spoke of inclusion, but not of them. And when a Black president was elected, the symbolism—however noble—felt like the final abandonment of the "real" Americans, the white, red, and blue "white trash" ignored by the Harvard elites who brought us Obama from Kenja to the White House via Honolulu, Hawaii.
Then came the backlash. Obama woke up the "white trash".
The MAGA movement—Make America Great Again—is a second revolt by Christian nationalists against the old money elites and their continued reliance on new waves of fresh immigrants to continue bypassing and ignoring those who they depict as deplorable trash or even insurrectionist garbage. The new "trash" is multiracial by now including blacks and browns whose birther offspring can vote the "right way" to the left side of the aisle.
MAGA is a coalition of new money and no money nationalists against the old money cosmopolitans. MAGA is emotional, cultural, and class-driven. The "real" Americans want to conserve their cultural traditions yet the cosmopolitan elites insist in changing in the name of progress.
Donald Trump, the heir to new money and a self-styled billionaire without the polish or pedigree of elite society, emerged as the ideal figurehead for the MAGA movement. Shunned by Manhattan’s old-guard establishment and long dismissed by progressive elites as a gaudy outsider, Trump transformed his personal grievance into political charisma. A showman with sharp instincts but no elite credentials, he weaponized his resentment toward the cultural gatekeepers who never welcomed him—channeling it into a populist crusade aimed squarely at the cosmopolitan, pro-immigration class that he and his supporters see as betraying the white Christian nationalist "heart" of America.
Interestingly, the MAGA movement would rather have a MAGA King than to deal with the complexities of a Constitutional democracy under the rule of law. In their view, the game is rigged already after centuries of elite control.
Despite all this complexities, today’s American political battlefield is very simple. It is still defined by this centuries-old fracture:
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Old money elitists and their immigrant and cosmopolitan followers using continued immigration and globalization for economic gain in the name of progress.
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New money and no-money nationalists seeking to stop progress to conserve value in the face of perceived erasure.
Both factions claim to represent true American values. But their conflict is not new—it is simply the latest round in a long war over who owns the nation, who builds it, and who it is for.
Trump's Economic Policies
Trump's economic policies in favor of the new money and no-money nationalists are stagnating the economy. For example, Trump’s tariffs—most recently under the so-called "Liberation Day" plan—have been a colossal failure. Despite court rulings questioning their legality, the administration has doubled down, framing the tariffs as a matter of “economic sovereignty.”
Yet the result has been far from empowering.
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Prices on imported goods have surged, raising costs for consumers and small businesses alike.
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Supply chains remain strained, with many companies uncertain how to plan inventory or pricing strategies.
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Foreign retaliation has intensified, hitting American exporters with counter-tariffs that the U.S. cannot control.
🏢 Business Uncertainty and Investment Slowdown
The return of protectionist rhetoric, erratic policy shifts, and the sidelining of global trade alliances has introduced a level of uncertainty not seen since the early pandemic years.
According to a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey:
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68% of business leaders report delayed capital investment due to policy instability.
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53% cite regulatory unpredictability as their top concern for 2025.
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Nearly half are reconsidering overseas expansion or hiring plans due to potential trade barriers.
🧯 The DOGE Disappointment
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, was one of Trump’s most hyped cost-cutting measures. Musk promised $2 trillion in savings. Verified independent audits show less than $2 billion achieved—a 99.9% shortfall.
What followed was not reform, but confusion:
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Massive federal layoffs led to service disruptions in healthcare, education, and transportation.
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Legal challenges derailed several restructuring efforts.
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Agencies were hollowed out faster than they could be modernized.
Rather than reducing waste, the effort added bureaucratic instability, without delivering on its fiscal promises.
🧮 Where’s the Growth?
Despite a few strong months on Wall Street—driven largely by tech earnings—the broader economy is flashing warning signs:
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GDP growth is slowing, with Q1 2025 at just 1.2%.
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Consumer confidence has dipped, driven by price instability and international tension.
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The dollar has weakened, in part due to uncertainty about U.S. trade and fiscal policy.
🌍 Global Reputation and Investor Confidence
Trump’s unilateralism has also damaged America’s standing abroad. Once the cornerstone of global economic leadership, the U.S. is now seen as an unreliable partner in trade negotiations and a volatile actor in global markets.
Foreign investment is down, multinational firms are hedging bets away from U.S. expansion, and allies are increasingly turning to Europe and China for trade partnerships.
🔚 Conclusion: Rich Theatrics and Poor Results.
In the Trump era, economic policy has become more about political theatrics than results. While press releases celebrate tax breaks and deregulation, the deeper story is one of fragility: declining trust in institutions, businesses navigating blind, and a global economy increasingly moving on without the U.S.
Trump’s supporters still tout him as a master negotiator and economic strongman. But the numbers, the market signals, and the voices of experts tell a different story. It's a story of an economy weighed down by self-inflicted wounds, reactive policymaking, and missed opportunities for real progress for all Americans.
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