After the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced that inflation rose during the first quarter of this year while gross domestic product shrank, President Donald Trump and his White House took two decidedly different tacks in responding.
On Truth Social, Trump blamed “Biden’s Stock Market” and the “overhang” of his Democratic predecessor, former President Joe Biden, for the “bad numbers.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt boasted that “the underlying numbers tell the real story of the strong momentum President Trump is delivering.”
“Today’s headline figure reflects the end of the Biden economic disaster, not the beginning of the economic boom that President Trump is delivering,” the White House said in a memo. “January growth, especially in consumer spending — which has an outsized weight on the Q1 figure — was hampered by colder-than-usual weather and California wildfires, and mostly occurred before President Trump took office.”
So, how much credit does Trump deserve for the bright spots of the economy? And how much blame does Biden deserve for the downturns? More than 100 days into a presidency marked by more executive orders than any other in history and an unprecedented unilateral usurpation of Congress’s historical powers over trade, the truth is that for better or for worse, the economy under Trump is largely Trump’s economy.
With the one crucial and major exception that defined Bidenomics: residual inflation.
On the positive side of the ledger for Trump, his administration has overseen an 8% decrease in Pentagon spending on an annualized basis from the previous quarter. And total federal spending dropped by 5% in the first three months of the year.
Yet there are reasons to worry, notably in financial markets, where nearly two-thirds of Americans have money invested. The Nasdaq is down 12% since Inauguration Day, and the Russell 2000 index, which includes the small caps Trump theoretically wants to favor with his sweeping tariff regime, is down 15%.
Then there are the looming effects of Trump’s tariff regime, which haven’t been fully felt yet. The shortages and price hikes that would come into effect if the White House fails to secure free trade negotiations with allied partners before the end of the 90-day pause on the “reciprocal” tariffs could prove financially dire.
The good news for Trump is that while Americans loathe the tariffs, inflation remains their dominant concern. In a CNN poll from April 17-24, nearly 3 in 5 Americans said expenses or the cost of living are still the biggest economic problem facing their families.
Another three-fifths of Americans reported to CNN that Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the country and increased their living costs. The overwhelming majority of Americans said the tariffs would harm the overall economy in the long and short term, as well as their finances.
There is no question that tariffs, if they persist at the universal 10% level or, worse, increase to the nonsensical “reciprocal” rates after the end of an unsuccessful 90-day pause, would indeed produce significant extra inflation. Tariffs are simply a consumption tax added to the cost of imports, and the upward pressure on prices would create shortages in import-reliant sectors and allow domestic producers to hike their price tags. Ordinary Americans understand this same reality that’s reflected in widespread investor abhorrence over the trade war. Mass popular opinion is manifesting in polls rather than equities or bonds.
However, as far as it exists in the data from Trump’s first 100 days, inflation is still a consequence of Bidenomics, as the White House has correctly maintained.
The Economic Policy and Innovation Center found that Biden raised government spending by 22% more than what it would have been under prior law, not coincidentally, the exact amount the CPI rose throughout his presidency. Biden’s early spending boondoggle created the fundamental inflation crisis that also shot up bond yields and, thus, the federal government’s borrowing costs.
But he didn’t stop there. In Biden’s final 100 days in office, he canceled an extra $10 billion in student loan debt (bringing the total to nearly $200 billion) and authorized an additional $380 billion in new debt through the American Relief and the Social Security Fairness acts. These figures weren’t even included in federal outlays, up 7% from October 2024 through January 2025 compared to the prior year. This accelerated spending has surely undermined the Federal Reserve’s attempts to bring inflation back down to its 2% target.
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But Trump is the president, and the buck stops with him, especially when he has so forcefully exerted economic powers traditionally reserved for the legislature and done so with the express intent of remaking the U.S. economy. And the shift of blame seems to be specifically because of “Liberation Day,” when Trump unleashed his tariffs on the globe.
In March, CBS found that only 34% of Americans blamed Trump for inflation compared to 38% who blamed Biden. However, after Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff announcement, CBS found that 54% blamed Trump only, and another 20% blamed Trump and Biden equally. It may not all be Trump’s fault, but voters still blame him.