Trump’s tariffs and his war against Iran caused prices to rise, but the US president continues to claim it’s ‘the greatest economy in history’.
Donald Trump has taken to repeating a familiar boast: “ We have the greatest economy in history,” Trump said recently at a White House press gaggle. The boast comes even though inflation is higher and economic growth lower than when Joe Biden left office, even though gas prices have jumped around 50% since the war against Iran started, and even though 73% of Americans think the economy is in fair or poor shape.
“It’s bluster, it’s gaslighting for him to say the economy is the greatest ever,” said Darrick Hamilton, chief economist for the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main union federation.
Hamilton said those errors include Trump’s tariffs and his war against Iran, both of which have pushed up prices – inflation is running at 3.4%, up from 3.0% when Biden left office. A New York Times/Siena Poll found that 71% of voters disapprove of how Trump is handling the cost of living.
Over the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fuel oil prices have soared 52%, while ground beef is up 7.2%, fish and seafood up 6.5%, coffee 6.1%, sugar and sweets 6.1% and electricity up 3.8%.
With the economy growing at a modest 1.5% rate in the second quarter, Trump stretches the truth when he boasts of a great economy, considering that under John F Kenndy, Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, there were full years when GDP growth averaged over 6%.