Current Events > Trump will leave office with a historically bad economic record

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Trump's record offered little legitimate grounds for boasting before the pandemic. The persistent growth in output and decline in the unemployment rate during his first three years extended trends in the recovery from the Great Recession that he inherited from President Barack Obama.

Growth accelerated in early 2018 following Trump's sole major legislative achievement, the tax cuts he and Congressional Republicans enacted. But that didn't last long with the economy already near full employment, and the budget deficit swelled. A temporary surge in investment resulted mainly from higher energy prices.

The counter-productive tariff wars Trump initiated quickly offset any short-term benefit from the tax-cuts and the administration's deregulation push. That's why Trump, to avoid further damaging the economy in his re-election year, called a truce with China in January without obtaining the structural reforms he had demanded from Beijing. Trump earlier threw away leverage by abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership with allies that the Obama administration had negotiated.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/13/politics/trump-economy-record/index.html


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