Hey, wasn't the most genius businessman of all time, star of stage, screen, and radio and legendary diva President Donald Trump going to bring down THE GROCERIES? How’s Trump doing with THE GROCERIES? And the eggs and the dolls and Zohran Mamdani’s favorite word, affordability? How’s those 90 deals in 90 days he promised working out?
Ha ha ha, the economy is shrinking like it got plunged into a freezing pool!
Trump declared April 2 LIBERATION DAY, and tariffed just about every country (except our enemies!) like Oprah giving out Pontiacs, including penguin island. Then on April 9 his seditionist toady Peter Navarro proclaimed all over the TV that there would be 90 deals in 90 days. Hey Siri, how many days has it been since then? Why, 79! Maybe that is the number of times Trump has hokey-pokeyed a tariff on China, and then still not gotten those rare-earth minerals that his techbro, automotive, and defense-industry buds need to make computer chips, car parts and planes and such. You know, the minerals the US had unfettered access to before LIBERATION DAY, and that China has twice as much of as any other country in the world.
And what do you know, with 11 days of artful dealmaking to go, Scott Bessent now says all those big deals are going to get done by Labor Day now.
PREVIOUSLY!
Maybe there is a breakthrough with China? The WSJ reports China now says it will “review and approve eligible export applications for controlled items in accordance with the law” when it comes to those rare earths, and China “said the US would lift a series of measures imposed against it.” But that is mighty vague, and meanwhile the administration is still holding 500,000 Chinese students’ visas hostage while Marco Rubio and Dealmaking Guy contradict each other and dither about whether the US is going to deport them all or not. And that’s obviously a big sticking point for China.
Meanwhile, shrinkage, shrinkage all over! At the end of the First Quarter, Howard Lutnick’s very own Commerce Department had estimated that the real GDP had fallen 0.2 percent, but turns out the actual number was more than double that, 0.5 percent. Sad graph.
LOL, how they made all the bars orange instead of the traditional black and red. The economy’s not in the red, it’s in the orange! That’s when the numbers go down but an orange man yells that it’s Joe Biden and Jerome Powell’s fault.
Retail sales also fell 0.9 percent in May, because shit is more expensive and everybody is now more broke: The core inflation rate was up 2.7 percent, THE GROCERIES were up 0.2 percent, while personal income was down 0.4 percent. And that’s just the month of May! There has been a recent uptick at the Los Angeles-area ports since May, while businesses try to put in orders before Trump flip-flops on the tariffs yet again. But LA’s port director says it’s still lower than average for June and there’s less than 30 percent of the cargo on the docks today than at the peak during COVID.
And what about that trade deficit, which was what Trump said he was so mad about to begin with? Surging! Up 11.1 percent since April!
Sounds like bad news for any little Johnny or Susie hoping to own more than one doll and hundreds of pencils. Better get a job, kid! If you can find one!
[AP / WSJ gift link / LA Times archive link / NBC ]
Our friend Kevin has a good thought:
Kevin M. Kruse
@kevinmkruse.bsky.social
An addled president is shredding the Constitution to usher in white nationalism and fascism while destroying the economy and our health care, so if you’re going to write an alarmist op-ed because a mayoral candidate might open five (5) city-run grocery stores, you can kindly get bent.
https://bsky.app/profile/kevinmkruse.bsky.social/post/3lskkw5wczs2z
It's weird how I'm not hearing anything about how economic anxiety justified voting for this fool