# The Trump Recession **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [February 20, 2025, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592 "2025-02-20T20:13:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/201 "2025-04-16T20:16:56Z")
Federal Reserve Bank Chair, Jerome Powell explains the inherent tension between: - controlling inflation, and - boosting growth > **[Powell indicates tariffs could pose a challenge for the Fed between...](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/16/powell-indicates-tariffs-could-pose-a-two-pronged-policy-challenge-for-the-fed-.html)** > > The central bank leader said that while he expects higher inflation and lower growth, it's unclear where the Fed will need to devote greater focus. This – when you’re Donald Trump – is how a businessman who can speak diplomatically starts to get you comfortable with the idea of [**stagflation**](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stagflation.asp). ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/202 "2025-04-21T22:01:20Z")
Another stellar day in the stock market. Another 1-2 days like this and we’ll MAGA our way back to 2021. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/203 "2025-04-21T22:17:18Z")
My business partner made a sales call on one of our customers today. He said they are deadly slow, and very worried about sales. They said that nobody is buying anything due to the tariffs and uncertainties. And, this is Semiconductor production equipment. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/204 "2025-04-21T22:33:01Z")
I posted elsewhere that my wife works for a manufacturing company that did $450M in last quarter sales. They manufacture in the US and Mexico. They are shifting more manufacturing to Mexico since they have a lot of non-US based customers so this will help avoid the tariffs. Even with that, they expect they will have to pay about $40M in tariffs this current quarter. I know Trump says China pays those tariffs, but according to this company, Trump is full of shit. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2025, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/205 "2025-04-21T22:54:12Z")
> [@wguy123](#): > > Another stellar day in the stock market. Another 1-2 days like this and we’ll MAGA our way back to 2021. I think we can point to “Trump threatens Fed Reserve” as the final straw that broke the world’s confidence in United States. The world economy can recover from turmoil eventually, but I don’t see how it recovers the mindset that the U.S. is a comparatively safer investment. It will take a long time for the world to wind down its U.S. treasury positions, but wind them down they will. Going forward, the U.S. will be just another large economy, and U.S. dollar will be just another currency. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/206 "2025-04-22T08:40:47Z")
From the BBC this morning: > - 21 April 2025 > > Updated 58 minutes ago > > **US stocks and the dollar plunged again as President Donald Trump intensified his attacks on the US central bank boss calling him “a major loser” for not lowering interest rates.** > > In a social media post, Trump called on Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell to cut interest rates “pre-emptively” to help boost the economy, saying Powell had been consistently too slow to respond to economic developments. > > “There can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW,” he wrote. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/207 "2025-04-22T12:39:21Z")
My wife and I are both in pharmaceuticals. She’s more on the biotech startup side, which is a really exciting business, generally. The startups are seeing the investment dry up. This is a business that has managed to mostly ignore the 2000 and 2008 recessions. Entirely a man-made crisis. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/208 "2025-04-22T13:21:36Z")
Trump will now say bad things about Ethan Hunt and the rest of the IMF. > **[US markets live: US growth forecast to be hit hardest from tariffs, IMF says, as](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c4g2l654dket)** > > US stocks and the dollar plunged on Monday after the president attacked the US central bank boss for not lowering interest rates. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2025, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/209 "2025-04-22T22:58:51Z")
Trump says he’s not going to try to fire Powell and that he’s not going to have a hard stance against trade with China. Sounds like someone sat him down and showed them whose boss at some point. This is a little self-interested but it almost seems to me like Trump is going to uncrash the world economy just to save Tesla from going under 200 bucks with their terrible earnings. Tesla will do anything to avoid their reckoning including divine intervention. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/210 "2025-04-23T00:01:34Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > divine intervention Didn’t they see what happened when Vance met the Pope? ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/211 "2025-04-23T00:19:32Z")
I was in a meeting today with a company that makes expensive scientific instrumentation that is manufactured in Japan. They said their company is shitting bricks over what to do with the tariff that will come with each $2M device. Adding $200,000 to each to cover the tariff or let their own profit go down the toilet? Guess who isn’t paying the tariff? Japan. It’s the customers or the company. Of course we already knew that… ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2025, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/212 "2025-04-23T00:27:46Z")
Global Vision, an up-to-now-American non-profit that provides low-cost glasses in low-income countries, is relocating to Winnipeg. Much of their glasses comes from China and the tariffs would destroy their (non)business model, making it impossible to provide glasses to people in low-income countries. They need certainty to continue with their work. > [@](#): > > The organization says in the last seven years, it has helped nearly a million people in Africa, Asia and South America with vision issues, but earlier this month, decided it would be challenging to continue to work out of the United States. > > “For us … it’s the chaos, it’s the disruption, it’s the unknowns that are really causing all of this,” said Kevin White, Global Vision 2020’s founder and executive director. > > “We produce a really, really inexpensive product,” but tariffs would make that impossible, he said. > > The non-profit is able to keep the prices of glasses at roughly $5 a pair by getting materials like frames and lenses from China. Once the materials reach Global Vision’s warehouse in Easton, Md., the organization packages and then ships the glasses to clinics and distribution centres in countries that include Ghana, Malawi and Laos. [https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7512564](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7512564) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2025, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/213 "2025-04-29T02:56:56Z")
There are no international container ships in Seattle’s harbor. The last container ship from China will dock at a West Coast harbor tomorrow and the last coming to the East Coast about May 10. > **[Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net)](https://bsky.app/profile/esqueer.net/post/3lnvjtgcxo22e)** > > The port of Seattle right now. It's completely empty with no new ships coming in. > > We're going to have disruptions to access of basic goods unlike anything we have ever experienced in our lifetimes. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2025, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/214 "2025-04-29T18:48:10Z")
It’s hard to view this as either capricious _or_ a good sign: [**UPS to cut 20,000 jobs on reduced Amazon deliveries, as US tariffs weigh [Reuters]**](https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/ups-reports-fall-first-quarter-revenue-2025-04-29/) > [@](#): > > Summary: > > - UPS is reducing Amazon shipping and delivery volumes by 50% > - Tariffs could usher in biggest trade disruption in more than a century, UPS CEO says > - Tariffs are reducing demand for delivery and shipping > - China tariffs could hit Amazon, Temu, Shein and other customers hard Some specifics: > United Parcel Service on Tuesday said it would slash 20,000 jobs and shut 73 facilities as part of a planned reduction in deliveries for [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com), and as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs roil global trade. > UPS aims to shelter profits by cutting $3.5 billion in 2025 with its latest overhead reductions. UPS also said a big percentage of the volume reduction from Amazon is money-losing work moving goods from fulfillment centers. The hardest part about playing chicken is knowing when to blink. Donald?? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2025, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/215 "2025-04-29T22:21:21Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > There are no international container ships in Seattle’s harbor. The last container ship from China will dock at a West Coast harbor tomorrow and the last coming to the East Coast about May 10. It’s the same story at all US ports: > **[Trump tariffs prompt slump in shipments to US ports](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/trump-tariffs-shipments-us-ports)** > > Number of vessels scheduled to arrive at Port of Los Angeles next week is down by almost a third year on year On the consumer side: people are starting to post what is (as of today) FORBIDDEN at Amazon: the amount of the Trump Tax per purchase, on online sites like Temu which DO permit disclosure of “import charges”: [![](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vcu43wx7eanikezcsayulz2n/bafkreiawqi3gi752g6zex3muh6mtrgkrbq6n7nd4kykn4ytvrivyoq2zkq@jpeg) ](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vcu43wx7eanikezcsayulz2n/bafkreiawqi3gi752g6zex3muh6mtrgkrbq6n7nd4kykn4ytvrivyoq2zkq@jpeg) [![](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vcu43wx7eanikezcsayulz2n/bafkreihe46cr5adwof5wj3cnxhun2qtx2rxenycd4mn4i3ztrczlgbkl7u@jpeg) ](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vcu43wx7eanikezcsayulz2n/bafkreihe46cr5adwof5wj3cnxhun2qtx2rxenycd4mn4i3ztrczlgbkl7u@jpeg) (The Amazon reference: > **[Trump complained to Bezos before Amazon said it scrapped idea to display...](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/29/white-house-blasts-amazon-over-tariff-cost-report-hostile-and-political-act.html)** > > Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has cozied up to President Donald Trump since the Republican won a second White House term. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/216 "2025-04-30T13:16:34Z")
The economy shrank in the first quarter of 2025. Two consecutive quarters of decline marks a recession. (Note that this shrinking occurred notwithstanding the fact that a lot of companies have tried to front load their spending to get out in front of upcoming tariffs) > **[U.S. Economy Shrank During 2025’s First Quarter As GDP Slipped 0.3%](https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2025/04/30/us-economy-shrank-during-2025s-first-quarter-as-gdp-slipped-03/)** > > It's the first quarter of economic contraction in three years. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/217 "2025-04-30T14:57:11Z")
January 29th 2024, when not in office: [![Imgur](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54487274628_4ccbf38956_b.jpg "20250430\_094318") ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/68782016@N08/54487274628/) Today: [![Imgur](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54487274633_d60b03472c_b.jpg "20250430\_094320") ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/68782016@N08/54487274633/) ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/218 "2025-04-30T15:08:19Z")
Ha! I was going to come post this same thing. When times are good, Trump owns it. When times are bad, BIDEN! The “Thanks Obama” meme is now “Thanks Biden”. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2025, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/219 "2025-05-01T13:42:59Z")
My wife called me from Costco yesterday. “Should I pick up a bag of rice, since it will become expensive and / or scarce soon?” Sure, I said. “Basmati or Jasmine?” Eh, might as well get one of each, I say. Dried rice lasts indefinitely. So now we have an apocalypse survival amount of rice on hand. We won’t starve for awhile, at least 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2025, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/220 "2025-05-01T20:51:21Z")
My house cleaner was here today. Her business is her family (sister, husband, mother). They’re all from Brazil and they tell me here legally (I don’t really care). She said people are pulling back and asking her to clean less frequently with weeklies going to biweekly and biweeklies going monthly. We’re biweekly but on alternating weeks she also cleans the now vacant in-law apartment She also complained about how many of her friends and family who have citizenship voted trump and are now shocked to see friends being rounded up. She claimed that for all we see of big raids on the news there are lots of little pickups we don’t hear about. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592.md?page=12)