Trump’s presidency lived by inflation and could be stung by it: There’s a good reason to think that inflation was the biggest reason why Donald Trump is president today.
Throughout Joseph Biden’s presidency, inflation was a major problem, for the first time in a generation. As in much of the world, pandemic-era supply-chain bottlenecks combined with too much money in the economy drove prices up. Politicians had few answers on how to solve the problem.
Joe Biden and Russian President Putin. Image Credit: Creative Commons
President Joe Biden. Image Credit: 2020 Joe Biden for President/Flickr.
In his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump made hay of inflation, and indications suggest the pitch worked, delivering Trump all seven major battleground states and a return to the White House.
But while Trump promised to reduce inflation, he hasn’t succeeded, which signals big trouble for his party in next week’s midterm elections.
According to The New York Times, inflation is emerging as a potentially decisive issue in the midterm elections, with voters suggesting that Trump has not only failed to solve the inflation problem but has also done specific things to make it worse.
Trump in Texas
Trump seems to have acknowledged that at a rally this week.
“I got elected because of high prices,” Trump said this week at a rally in Corpus Christi, Tex. “I didn’t have the high prices. They had the high prices,” he said, referring to the Democrats having inflation problems that Trump didn’t have during his first presidency.
Trump’s time in Texas during the campaign’s final week, a red state he’d won three times, suggests where the political state of play lies, with Republicans bringing Trump in to defend Senate seats they’ve held for decades.
Per the Times’ analysis, the election result next Tuesday “may well hinge on the depth of voters’ fury with the rising cost of living — and the president’s unmet promises to do something about it.”
Trump, the newspaper notes, has pointed to other economic indicators, like the stock market, economic growth, unemployment numbers, and other traditional measures. But those numbers were also strong during the Biden-Harris years, and inflation tended to overwhelm the good news in many voters’ eyes.
Kamala Harris. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
As The Times noted, recent economic data show that while the economy is “expanding at a faster clip,” prices keep rising. And that trade-off isn’t helping Trump, the newspaper says, because voters notice every day that prices are rising, “when they fill up their gas tanks, shop for groceries, pay their health insurance premiums, receive their credit card bills and confront the difficulties of homeownership.”
Trump’s Specific Actions
In his second term, Trump has taken specific, high-profile actions that have driven prices higher. The most notable one is the decision to invade Iran, which not only broke a campaign promise about avoiding costly foreign wars, but has resulted directly in higher gas prices, thanks to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the resulting energy bottlenecks.
The Iran War, the Times said, has “ricocheted across the global economy, raising the costs of airfares, farming, heating, shipping and transportation.”
This has pushed oil to $113 a barrel as of Friday. Trump has sought to blame Ukraine and its attacks on Russian oil refineries for the rising cost of gasoline, but there’s little indication that voters are buying that explanation.
Trump’s tariffs, meanwhile, are also seen as a factor in rising prices.
Economists Speak
Tomas J. Philipson, an economist who advised Trump in his first term, told the Times that some of Trump’s economic moves were tied to “laudable goals,” and that some current economic numbers are strong. But voters aren’t moved by such arguments.
“People don’t keep track of aggregate statistics,” Philipson told the Times.
“They go to the grocery store every week, and they go to the gas station maybe every other week, and they are upset about that.”
Satyam Panday, S&P Global Ratings’ chief U.S. economist, told the newspaper that inflation is the economy’s main weakness.
“The only sore spot in the economy is inflation, and I think despite the strong consumption and growth, you’ve got this pessimism,” Panday said.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has written thousands of articles on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
