Evelyn Reynolds

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    Trump’s promised ‘golden age’ for the US economy is off to a chaotic start

    Donald Trump promised to usher in a new “golden age” for the US economy – one with lower prices, more jobs and greater wealth. This week, his first quarter report card came in, and the new age is off to a chaotic start.Gross domestic product (GDP) shrank for the first time in three years during the first quarter, abruptly turning negative after a spell of robust growth as trade distortions and weaker consumer spending dampened activity.It took the US president all of 43 minutes to distance himself from the dismal reading, released on Wednesday morning.“Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden ‘Overhang’,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform. “This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”By Trump’s telling, any bad numbers are the fault of Joe Biden – but this attribution does not extend to the good ones.March’s strong jobs report demonstrated how “the private sector is roaring back under President Donald J. Trump”, according to a statement issued by the White House. “IT’S ALREADY WORKING,” the president declared the day it was published.But April’s less buoyant jobs report, released on Friday, prompted a more tepid response. He wrote: “Just like I said, and we’re only in a TRANSITION STAGE, just getting started!!!”So which is it? Is the “golden age” of America well under way? Or will it take a while?Growth in the first three months of the year – no matter how much Trump wants to blame the 19 or so days he was not yet in office – was significantly challenged by the new administration’s plans to overhaul the world economy. US goods imports surged 41% as companies scrambled to pre-empt tariffs, while consumer spending on durable goods fell 3.4% as sentiment came under pressure.And the first quarter figures raised troubling questions about the second. Activity weakened largely as firms braced for the lion’s share of Trump’s tariffs, which he only unveiled in early April. How those firms, and their customers, ultimately respond to those tariffs – and the confusion around them – is widely expected to have a greater impact on growth.Trump’s erratic rollout of 10% tariffs on goods from much of the world, and 145% on China, “have altered the picture dramatically” since the end of the first quarter, Oliver Allen, senior US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, observed. “Any support to spending from pre-tariff purchases will unwind soon now that substantial new tariffs have been imposed.“Consumers’ spending will also be weighed down by a hit to confidence and real incomes from higher prices, while intense uncertainty will put the freeze on business investment, and exports – especially to China – will suffer.”It is too soon to say whether tariffs, which the administration insists will revitalize the US economy, will, in fact, set the stage for a recession: two consecutive quarters of contraction. On Trump’s watch, the landscape shifts rapidly from one day to the next, let alone during an entire quarter.Trump is right, to a point: most of his tariffs are not to blame for the stunning reversal of growth in the first quarter. The US only hiked duties on China and imposed its blanket 10% levy on many other countries last month, days into the second quarter.The foundations of a potential Trumpcession were not laid in the early months of the year by the tariffs themselves, but by his administration’s execution of them.From repeated jerks and jolts around sweeping duties on Canada and Mexico to announcing “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of nations which were ultimately imposed for less than a day, widespread confusion and uncertainty is now embedded into the world’s largest economy. Businesses inside it and out are not happy.Scott Bessent, Trump’s treasury secretary, has coined an interesting term for this playbook of threats, theatrics and social media broadsides. “President Trump creates what I would call ‘strategic uncertainty’ in the negotiations,” he told a press briefing on Tuesday. “As we start moving forward, announcing deals, then there will be certainty. But certainty is not necessarily a good thing in negotiating.”However useful Trump and his officials find “strategic uncertainty” during trade negotiations, it has different consequences for those paying bills they were repeatedly assured would swiftly fall, trying to grow a business in a market with leaders locked in a war of words with the White House, or planting a crop without knowing what the economic realities will be by the harvest.Trump returned to office after winning the backing of rural and lower-income voters in significant numbers last November. He needs to preserve his base if Republicans are to maintain power in Washington during his second term.Polling suggests these groups are concerned. A PBS News/NPR/Marist survey, published this week, found 48% of rural voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy. The same was true for 57% of voters with a household income of less than $50,000.As apprehension grows, the US president has sought to play down the risks. In one of the more peculiar moments in another bizarre week, he appeared to play down the threat of empty store shelves.“Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, y’know,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”China has “ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which – not all of it, but much of which – we don’t need”, he continued.It is typically up to the American consumer, not their president, to decide what they do and don’t need to buy. For a man whose fortune and image are built around conspicuous consumption, the comments seemed very off-brand. “Skimp on the Barbie” read the front page of the often Trump-friendly New York Post. It is still early days for Trump. But already the Biden “overhang” argument is wearing thin. It will be up to US voters, not their president, to deliver a verdict on his handling of the economy. More

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    Trump administration to cut thousands of jobs from CIA and other spy agencies – report

    The White House plans to cut staffing at the Central Intelligence Agency by 1,200 positions while other intelligence agencies including the National Security Agency will also shed thousands of jobs, the Washington Post has reported.A person familiar with the plan confirmed the changes to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.The Trump administration has told members of Congress about the planned cuts at the CIA, which will take place over several years and be accomplished in part through reduced hiring as opposed to layoffs, the Post reported on Friday. The cuts include several hundred people who had already opted for early retirement, it said.In response to questions about the reductions, the CIA issued a statement saying its director, John Ratcliffe, was working to align the agency with Donald Trump’s national security priorities.“These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position CIA to deliver on its mission,” the agency said in the statement.A spokesperson for the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Gabbard’s office oversees and coordinates the work of 18 agencies that collect and analyse intelligence.The CIA earlier this year became the first US intelligence agency to join a voluntary redundancy program initiated by Trump, who has vowed to radically downsize the federal workforce in the name of efficiency and frugality. The NSA has already offered voluntary resignations to some employees.The CIA has said it also plans to lay off an unknown number of recently hired employees.The Trump administration has also eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion programs at intelligence agencies, though a judge has temporarily blocked efforts to fire 19 employees working on DEI programs who challenged their terminations.Trump also abruptly fired the general who led the NSA and the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, Tim Haugh.Ratcliffe has vowed to overhaul the CIA and said he wants to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China.With the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse More

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    Trump order targeting law firm Perkins Coie is unconstitutional, judge rules

    A federal judge on Friday permanently struck down Donald Trump’s executive order that targeted the firm Perkins Coie, which once worked with his 2016 presidential election rival Hillary Clinton, after declaring in an extraordinary ruling that the order was unconstitutional and unlawful.The decision from the US district judge Beryl Howell, which criticized virtually every aspect of the order in a 102-page opinion, marks a major victory for Perkins Coie and could be used as a model by other judges weighing cases brought by other law firms in similar orders.“No American president has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue,” she wrote, adding: “In purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’”Howell found in particular that the executive order violated the first, fifth and sixth amendments and permanently barred its implementation. She also raised alarm at other law firms that opted to strike deals with the Trump administration rather than face the possibility of being targeted themselves.Perkins Coie was the first law firm to end up in the crosshairs of Trump’s executive orders aimed at law firms that terminated any government contracts and barred federal employees from engaging with its attorneys or allowing them access to federal buildings, including courthouses.The administration said at the time that Perkins Coie was a national security risk principally because it had hired Fusions GPS on behalf of the Clinton presidential campaign in 2016, which produced the “dossier” that pushed discredited claims about Trump’s connections to Russia.Howell rejected that contention outright in her decision, citing Trump’s own attacks against Perkins Coie and the stunning breadth of everyone from the attorneys to the assistants at the firm facing restrictions as evidence that the executive order was retaliatory.The provision in the executive order that barred its lawyers from entering federal government buildings and engaging with government employees in particular was not speculative, Howell said, in part because the government had cancelled meetings within days of it being issued.The attempt by the administration to argue that it was limited to only when such access would threaten national security or in the national interest of the US was unconvincing, Howell said, since the executive order itself said working with Perkins Coie was not in the national interest.“That is unconstitutional retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, plain and simple,” she wrote.Howell also rebuked Trump over the requirement in the executive order for any private companies that had government contracts to disclose whether they had ever worked with Perkins Coie, regardless of whether it was related to their government contract work.The requirement, Howell suggested, was at odds with the first amendment protection to freely use any lawyer, since the need to disclose any possible work with Perkins Coie could mean firms that contracted with the government would be dissuaded from using them at all.And the order was unlawfully broad, Howell said, since it required disclosure “whether the contract is for crucial classified military equipment costing millions of dollars per item delivered or for paper clips costing pennies, and no matter whether the disclosure of association with plaintiff had anything to do with a government contract”.The Trump administration is almost certain to appeal to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit. The ruling comes weeks after Howell previously issued a temporary restraining order that blocked Trump’s order from taking effect after a hearing last month in federal district court in Washington.That temporary injunction followed an emergency lawsuit filed by Perkins Coie on the advice of Williams and Connolly, another elite firm in the nation’s capital known for taking cases against government overreach.Perkins Coie had initially reached out to the firm Quinn Emanuel, which has previously represented people in Trump’s orbit, including Elon Musk, the Trump Organization itself, and the New York mayor, Eric Adams, whose corruption charges were dropped by the justice department last month.But Quinn Emanuel declined to take Perkins Coie as a client, as its top partners decided not to become involved in a politically sensitive issue that could make themselves a target by association just as they have been on the rise as a power center in Washington DC.While other law firms discussed whether to file amicus briefs or declarations supporting Perkins Coie, the firm was ultimately taken on by Williams and Connolly. They advised Perkins Coie to ask for an emergency hearing and temporary restraining order, both of which Howell granted. More

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    Trump news at a glance: president floats Pentagon budget boost; army may hold parade for his birthday

    The Trump administration is considering cuts worth $163bn to departments including health and education as well as environmental schemes while increasing spending on defense, according to a White House budget blueprint.In contrast to the squeeze on discretionary social programmes, the administration is planning a 13% rise – to more than $1tn – in the Pentagon budget, a commitment at odds with Donald Trump’s frequent vows to end the US’s involvement in “forever wars” in the Middle East and elsewhere.The budget draft was circulated as reports emerged of a huge military parade planned to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US army as well as Trump’s birthday.Here are the key stories at a glance:Trump plans $163bn cuts in non-defense spendingDonald Trump is proposing huge cuts to social programmes like health and education while planning substantial spending increases on defense and the Department of Homeland Security, in a White House budget blueprint that starkly illustrates his preoccupation with projecting military strength and deterring migration.Read the full storyUS army may hold parade on Trump birthdayDetailed army plans for a potential military parade on Trump’s birthday in June call for more than 6,600 soldiers, at least 150 vehicles, 50 helicopters, seven bands and possibly a couple of thousand civilians, the Associated Press has learned.At the same time, Fox News reported that the parade was a definite go-ahead and would happen on 14 June, the 250th birthday of the US army as well as Trump’s own birthday, when he will turn 79.Read the full storyJudge rules Trump order targeting law firm Perkins Coie is unconstitutionalA federal judge on Friday permanently struck down Donald Trump’s executive order that targeted the firm Perkins Coie, which once worked with his 2016 presidential election rival Hillary Clinton, after declaring in an extraordinary ruling that the order was unconstitutional and unlawful.Read the full storySupreme court justice condemns Trump anti-law rhetoricThe US supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has condemned the Trump administration’s attacks on the judiciary in a cutting speech at a judicial conference.Without mentioning Donald Trump by name, Jackson spoke of “the elephant in the room” and rhetoric from the White House “designed to intimidate the judiciary”.“ Across the nation, judges are facing increased threats of not only physical violence, but also professional retaliation just for doing our jobs,” Jackson said on Thursday evening, according to the New York Times. “And the attacks are not random. They seem designed to intimidate  those of us who serve in this critical capacity.”Read the full storyTrump orders funding cut for public broadcastersThe US president has signed an executive order that seeks to cut public funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, accusing them of leftwing bias. The order, signed late on Thursday, directs the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which sends funds to NPR and PBS, to “cease federal funding” for the two outlets.Read the full storyTrump officials agree to halt school funding freeze in MaineThe Trump administration has agreed not to freeze funds to Maine schools, a win for a state that was targeted by the president over its support of transgender rights.Read the full storyTrump pardons cost public $1bn, ex-official saysThe justice department’s pardon attorney, who was recently fired, has claimed on social media that Trump’s recent wave of pardoning white-collar criminals has erased more than “$1bn in debts owed by wealthy Americans” to the public purse.Read the full storyUS jobs fare better than expected amid tariffsHiring in the US slowed in April, according to official figures, with the workforce adding 177,000 jobs as Trump’s aggressive trade strategy clouded the economic outlook. As the White House pressed ahead with sweeping tariffs on overseas imports, claiming this would revitalize the US economy, employers across the country continued to add jobs at a steady pace.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    Marco Rubio is slated to keep his dual roles as secretary of state and national security adviser for at least six months and the positions could even become permanent, according to Politico. Rubio’s placement was not meant to be a temporary slot-in, reports Politico, which cites three senior White House officials.

    Photographs taken at Trump’s cabinet meeting this week have revealed that top White House officials are now communicating using an even less secure version of the Signal messaging app than was at the center of a huge national security scandal last month.

    The Trump administration has ordered the closure of 25 scientific centers that monitor US waters for flooding and drought, and manage supply levels to ensure communities around the country don’t run out of water.

    Trump said again on Friday that he would be “taking away” Harvard’s tax-exempt status as a non-profit in a legally questionable move that escalates his ongoing feud with the elite university.

    The White House plans to cut staffing at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by 1,200 positions while other intelligence agencies including the National Security Agency (NSA) will also shed thousands of jobs, the Washington Post has reported.

    A mother deported to Cuba reportedly had to hand over her 17-month-old daughter to a lawyer while her husband, a US citizen, stood outside unable to say goodbye.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 1 May 2025. More

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    Win for Maine as Trump officials agree to halt school funding freeze

    The Trump administration has agreed not to freeze funds to Maine schools, a win for a state that was targeted by the president over its support of transgender rights.In a settlement disclosed on Friday, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it would halt all efforts to withhold funds for a child nutrition program in Maine. The USDA had suspended those dollars after Maine officials said the state would not comply with Donald Trump’s demands that trans girls be barred from participating in girls’ sports.In February, when the president directly threatened to revoke funding from the state at a White House meeting with governors, Janet Mills, Maine’s Democratic governor, had responded, “We’ll see you in court,” in a widely shared exchange.Maine then sued the USDA last month to maintain its funding and agreed on Friday to drop its lawsuit in exchange for the restoration of funds.“It’s good to feel a victory like this,” the governor said a press conference, the Portland Press Herald reported. “I stood in the White House and when confronted by the president of the United States, I told him I’d see him in court. Well, we did see him in court, and we won.”The governor said USDA had frozen funds for a program that helps feed 172,000 children in the state, the paper reported.The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The settlement says the USDA and Brooke Rollins, the secretary of agriculture, “agree to refrain from freezing, termination, or otherwise interfering with the state of Maine’s access to United States Department of Agriculture funds … based on alleged violations of Title IX without first following all legally required procedures”.The Trump administration had alleged that Maine’s policy of allowing transgender youth’s participation in sports violated Title IX, the federal anti-discrimination law.Maine’s attorneys argued that the child nutrition program received or was due to receive more than $1.8m for the current fiscal year. Prior year funds that were awarded but are currently inaccessible total more than $900,000, the lawsuit said. The complaint also said that the program was anticipating about $3m that is typically awarded every July for summer meal program sponsor administration and meal reimbursement.A federal judge had ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze funds last month after finding that Maine was likely to succeed in its legal challenge.Aaron Frey, the Maine attorney general, said in a statement on Friday: “It’s unfortunate that my office had to resort to federal court just to get USDA to comply with the law and its own regulations.“But we are pleased that the lawsuit has now been resolved and that Maine will continue to receive funds as directed by Congress to feed children and vulnerable adults.”The settlement does not affect another ongoing lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against the Maine department of education over its policy for trans athletes.Mills said Friday she was “confident” the state would also prevail in that case, the Portland Press Herald reported. The governor, who has said the dispute was about defending states’ rights, added: “These bullying tactics, we will not tolerate them.” More

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    Puerto Rico drops climate lawsuit after DoJ sues states to block threats to big oil

    Puerto Rico has voluntarily dismissed its 2024 climate lawsuit against big oil, a Friday legal filing shows, just two days after the US justice department sued two states over planned litigation against oil companies for their role in the climate crisis.Puerto Rico’s lawsuit, filed in July, alleged that the oil and gas giants had misled the public about the climate dangers associated with their products. It came as part of a wave of litigation filed by dozens of US states, cities and municipalities in recent years.Donald Trump’s administration has pledged to put an end to these cases, which he has called “frivolous” and claimed are unconstitutional. In court filings on Wednesday, his justice department claimed the Clean Air Act “displaces” states’ ability to regulate greenhouse gas outside their borders.The agency specifically targeted Michigan, whose Democratic attorney general last year tapped private law firms to work on such a case, and Hawaii, whose Democratic governor filed its suit on Thursday. Officials from both states condemned the justice department’s filings.Friday’s filing from Puerto Rico did not list a reason for the lawsuit’s dismissal. The Guardian has contacted the territory’s attorney general’s office for comment and asked whether it was related to the Trump administration’s moves on Wednesday.Reached for comment, John Lamson, a spokesperson for the San Francisco-based law firm Sher Edling, which filed the 2024 suit on behalf of Puerto Rico said: “We serve under the direction and control, and at the pleasure, of our clients in all of our representations.”Puerto Rico in November elected as governor the Republican Jenniffer González-Colón, a Trump ally. In February, González-Colón tapped Janet Parra-Mercado as the territory’s new attorney general.Climate-accountability litigation has also faced recent attacks in the media. Last month, an oilfield services executive published an op-ed in Forbes saying the Puerto Rico lawsuit “may derail” efforts to improve grid reliability.Groups tied to the far-right legal architect Leonard Leo have also campaigned against the lawsuits. And just days before the voluntary dismissal, the rightwing, pro-fossil fuel advocacy group American Energy Institute (AEI) sent a letter to González-Colón, Fox News reported, calling for an end to climate-focused “coordinated lawfare”.“Their goal is to bankrupt energy companies or to leverage the threat of tort damages to force outcomes that would be disastrous for Puerto Rico and the rest of the nation,” AEI’s CEO, Jason Isaac, wrote of the plaintiffs.AEI has attacked climate-focused legal efforts and has been linked to Leo, the Guardian has reported.In December, a California-based trade association of commercial fishers voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit accusing big oil of climate deception.In two earlier lawsuits, 37 Puerto Rico municipalities and the capital city of San Juan accused fossil fuel companies of conspiring to deceive the public about the climate crisis, seeking to hold them accountable for the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria. More

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    Trump white-collar criminal pardons cost public $1bn, says ex-DoJ official

    The justice department’s pardon attorney, who was recently fired, has claimed on social media that Donald Trump’s recent wave of pardoning white-collar criminals has erased more than “$1bn in debts owed by wealthy Americans” to the public purse.In a TikTok video, Liz Oyer, who has said that she was terminated in March after refusing to comply with an order to restore the gun rights of the actor Mel Gibson – a supporter of Trump’s – explained that “when you’re convicted of a financial crime like fraud or embezzlement, the law requires you to pay back the money that you stole. It’s called restitution.”However, she said, “the president has the power to pardon which can wipe out your entire sentence including your obligation to pay back the money.”Oyer alleged: “In total, Donald Trump has granted pardons that have wiped out over $1bn in debts owed by wealthy Americans who have committed fraud and broken the law.”In the video, Oyer highlights the case of Michele Fiore, a former Republican politician from Nevada, who was convicted of wire fraud last year.She was accused of misusing more than $70,000 she raised to build statues in honor of two slain police officers. Instead of building the statues, prosecutors said that she used the funds on “personal and political expenses”.The White House pardoned Fiore, and according to Oyer, this released her from repaying those funds.In a different video, Oyer pointed to Trump’s pardon of Trevor Milton, the founder of an electric vehicle startup, who was convicted of fraud in 2023 and sentenced to four years in prison.The Washington Post reported that the judge had not yet determined the restitution amount, but that federal prosecutors estimated that Milton owed more than $680m to defrauded shareholders.Notably, Milton and his wife contributed more than $1.8m to a Trump re-election campaign.Oyer said his pardon erased the restitution being sought.The Post reported that Oyer added up the alleged restitution amounts for the relevant individuals convicted of stealing.The newspaper also noted that some of Trump’s pardon recipients had not yet been sentenced, so their owed amounts had not been finalized by the courts.Additionally, the Post reported that Trump pardoned the cryptocurrency exchange HDR Global Trading (BitMEX), which eliminated a $100m fine against the exchange for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. Trump also pardoned several company executives who had pleaded guilty to financial crimes.Oyer told the Post it was “unprecedented for a president to grant pardons that have the effect of wiping out so much debt owed by people who have committed frauds”.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.Last month, Oyer, who served in Joe Biden’s administration, testified before Congress about her termination and the Trump administration’s treatment of the justice department and law firms.According to Oyer’s lawyer, the justice department had planned to send armed US marshals to deliver a letter to her home warning her about testifying. More

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    One hundred days in, Donald Trump faces a problem: he can rage, but he can’t govern | Jonathan Freedland

    He says it’s the “best 100-day start of any president in history”, but you can file that along with his boast about crowd sizes and his claim to have won the 2020 election. In truth, the first three months of Donald Trump’s second presidency have been calamitous on almost every measure. The single biggest achievement of those 100 days has been to serve as a warning of the perils of nationalist populism, which is effective in winning votes but disastrous when translated into reality. That warning applies across the democratic world – and is especially timely in Britain.Start with the numbers that matter most to Trump himself. A slew of polls appeared this week, but they all told the same story: that Trump’s approval ratings have collapsed, falling to the lowest level for a newly installed president in the postwar era. He has now edged ahead of his only rival for that title: himself. The previous low watermark for a president three months in was set by one Donald Trump in 2017.Back then, 42% of Americans approved of the way Trump was doing his job. The latest Ipsos survey for the Washington Post/ABC News has Trump at just 39%. This, remember, is meant to be the honeymoon period, yet Trump is 10 points behind where Joe Biden stood at this point, 30 points behind Barack Obama and 44 points behind Ronald Reagan. Remember: US presidents tend to get less, not more, popular as time goes on.Perhaps most significant is that Trump is weak even in those areas where he’s meant to be strong. Confidence in his ability to handle immigration has tumbled and the same is true, even more critically, of his management of the US economy. On the latter, just 37% back Trump, a depth he never plumbed during his first term, even as the economy seized up under Covid. For the first time since 2001, a majority of Americans believe their economic situation is getting worse.With good reason. Because the economic data is almost as troubling for Trump as his poll numbers. This week, official figures showed that the US economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, further fuelling fears of a recession. Trump wasted no time in blaming the shrinkage on Biden, who was in charge for just 20 days of the first three months of 2025, an argument only slightly weakened by the fact that the last quarter with Biden in charge saw growth of 2.4%.It’s a precipitous drop, and the cause of it is hardly mysterious. Economists agree that the culprit is Trump’s tariffs, which prompted a surge in imports, as companies scrambled to buy in goods from abroad before the president’s on-again-off-again levies kicked in. Because those imported goods and services are not produced in the US, they’re subtracted from the headline GDP figure. Hence the contraction. Meanwhile, the chaos and volatility unleashed by Trump’s tariff policy has dented consumer confidence, now down to its lowest level since the recession of 1990, leaving Americans hesitant to spend money amid so much uncertainty. Even though the latest job numbers look healthy, analysts say the underlying picture is alarming. As Bloomberg reports, “corporate investment plans and expectations for growth and jobs have all plummeted – and the key reason is Trump’s trade war.”Trump knows that the warnings from retail giants Walmart and Target, of empty shelves as supplies from heavily tariffed China dry up, have cut through. He addressed that anxiety this week, but in a way that should make even Trump’s admirers, those who usually praise his ability to connect with ordinary folk, worry that he’s losing his touch.Asked about potential shortages of toys at Christmas, Trump said, “Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more.” Bit late in his career for Trump to don the saffron robes and preach a Zen flight from consumerist materialism. His two-toys remark – which strangely did not feature as one of his campaign pledges in 2024 – has already cast him as the Grinch set to ruin Christmas.“BE PATIENT!!!” he urges on his social media platform, as he insists that the vertiginous downward slide of the stock market either doesn’t matter or is all Biden’s fault. But the whiff of desperation is strong as Trump begins to see why the one idea he actually believes in and has believed in for decades – tariffs – is an object of near-universal contempt among economists. Yes, tariffs may have succeeded in persuading Apple to shift manufacturing away from China. But those jobs are not about to move to the US. Apple has announced instead that it will assemble its US-bound iPhones in India. Better restitch those red baseball caps with a revised slogan: make India great again.By now, you’ll recall, Trump was meant to have ended the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, indeed he promised to do that by 21 January. But after a brief ceasefire, Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has resumed, the Trump administration having apparently lost interest. As for Ukraine, Trump got to brag of a breakthrough this week, with an agreement that gives the US a stake in Ukraine’s mineral wealth. But it’s far from the deal he sought.The case he always made was that the US had to be reimbursed for the billions it had given Ukraine in military support under Biden – plucking the entirely bogus figure of $350bn out of the air. But this week’s arrangement includes no such payback. On the contrary, the deal is one Kyiv can look on with quiet satisfaction. It seems the Ukrainians could smell Trump’s need to have something to shout about in time for his 100th day, and they leveraged that eagerness to their advantage.As for his expansionist threats to gobble up Panama, Greenland and Canada, the only concrete result those have brought is defeat in Canada’s general election for the pro-Trump Conservatives and a back-from-the-dead success for the Liberal party that vowed to defy him. Such is Trump’s narcissism that he even boasted about that, citing it as evidence of how much he matters in the world. As he put it, just before Canadians voted: “You know, until I came along, the Conservative was leading by 25 points,” he mused. “I was disliked by enough of the Canadians that I’ve thrown the election into a close call.”The promise was that this second Trump term would be different, that the chaos and churn of Trump 1.0 would be gone. But on Thursday, we were back to the good old days, with the firing of his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, partly for his accidental admission of a journalist into a Signal group chat that discussed attack plans for Yemen, partly for advocating a tougher stance on Vladimir Putin, and partly for earning the hostility of far-right conspiracist Laura Loomer, who has the ear of the president.So it’s fair to say the 100 days have not gone as Trump would have wished. And thanks to those serial failures, you can see the first, small signs that his power to terrify is fading. Witness the handful of senate Republicans who voted with Democrats against his tariff policy. And note how the reliably rightwing editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is now a fierce critic, slamming Trump as a “bully” and denouncing tariffs as “the biggest economic policy mistake in decades”. For a few short hours, even Jeff Bezos seemed ready to take a stand, amid reports that Amazon was about to itemise the cost of tariffs to US customers, before the company backed down.Of course, none of this should be a surprise. Trump’s conman promises and delusional dreams of turning the clock back were always bound to fail. This is the nature of nationalist populism, whether it wears a red cap in Michigan or a turquoise rosette in Runcorn. It is expert at turning grievance, division and nostalgia into votes. But when it comes to governing, it will always fail. It offers an outlet for complaint – and has no answers at all.

    Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist More