Writing in The New Republic, Paige Oamek warns that Trump’s economic plans would wreak havoc on the economy.
Donald Trump says he has a plan for the economy, but that doesn’t mean it’s any good.
According to independent nonprofit nonpartisan researchers, Trump’s policies on tariffs, deportations, and the Federal Reserve would, if put in action, seriously hike inflation, wipe out jobs, and slow U.S. production and economic growth.
In even the most generous modeling, inflation would reach 6 percent by 2026 and consumer prices would balloon 20 percent by 2028.
According to an analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economicspublished Thursday, the devastating effects on the economy could last through 2040.
Trump promises to carry out “mass deportations” if elected president. Doing so could “cause a large inflationary impulse and a significant loss of employment (particularly in manufacturing and agriculture) in the US economy,” the researchers found. The deportation plan on its own would provide no economic benefit to Americans.
Warwick McKibbin, a senior fellow and co-author of the study, told CNN that the institute estimates that deporting undocumented workers would cause a pandemic-like “shock,” especially in the agriculture industry.
“Can you imagine taking 16 percent out of the labor force in agriculture?” McKibbin said, who noted the ripple effects would include rising cost of food or even permanent loss of supply.
Trump’s isolationist approach to the economy through deportations and tariffs on U.S. imports would hurt the American people most. “We find that ironically, despite his ‘make the foreigners pay’ rhetoric, this package of policies does more damage to the US economy than to any other in the world,” wrote the authors.
Of course, the Trump team denied the findings, with Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes telling CNN the exact opposite: “Trump policies will fuel growth, drive down inflation, inspire American manufacturing, all while protecting the working men and women of our nation from lopsided policies tilted in favor of other countries.”

It is not just Trump spewing all this crap. Ever since Reagan, Republicans have pursued policies that have caused inflation and blamed various groups. Anyone ever heard of the welfare Cadillac as the symbol for government waste? Those democrats want big government, that’s the problem. We have seen this before. Without the tax cuts, the debt over the past 40 years would be trillions lower.
Trump will do nothing to deport anyone, just like he never built a wall. If he did, that would rob republicans of the immigration issue, which they have been refusing to solve since Obama.
Trump will attempt to make policy that will infect the economy with inflation on the watch of the next Democrat, so the Republicans can once again blame the inflation on the democrats.
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The only reason he might not deport millions of illegal immigrants would be if the employers in agriculture and the tourist industry got his ear: who will plant and gather the crops? Who will change the hotel beds? Who will wash the dishes? Who will work in the slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants?
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You’re right, Diane. If a rich guy tells Trump not to do something, he agrees. He so wants rich people to like him.
Look at his about face moves in regarding to Yass/TikTok and Musk/electric cars.
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What some commenters here are forgetting is that Stephen “Goebbels” Miller will doubtless be placed in charge of any deportation scheme. The man is rabidly racist and a go-getter. Yes, Trump is a lazy incompetent, and nothing would happen if he were in charge, but Trump will not be in charge of this. Trump’s former Propaganda Minister will be.
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Also his about face on crypto currency. He not only stopped criticizing it, he and his sons got into the business
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You all are probably correct, but it strikes me that if deportation would cost him time at a golf course, he might not get it done. Miller, on the other hand, would probably cheerfully work to Himmler every person he hates.
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Well said, Roy! I never thought of turning Himmler into a verb.
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Lots of builders hire immigrants, and many of the builders here in Florida are Trump supporters. We already have a housing shortage. Deporting immigrants would exacerbate this problem.
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Across the board tariffs and mass deportations. Sounds like tanking a democracy for a poisoning elf to me. Sad little traitor…
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TRUMP’S TARIFF TRICK
Trump is counting on the fact that you and most Americans didn’t take an Economics course in high school or college and therefore you don’t have any real understanding of how tariffs work. So, here’s what one of the most conservative organizations in America — The Cato Institute — explains about tariffs:
“Recent empirical evidence indicates that the U.S. tariffs imposed in 2018 and 2019 [by Trump] WERE ALMOST ENTIRELY PASSED ON TO U.S. CONSUMERS, RESULTING IN HIGHER PRICES.” That’s Inflation.
In short: Tariffs imposed on foreign nations end up being PAID BY YOU.
Here’s how that happens:
Bottom Line: U.S. CONSUMERS — YOU — PAY THE COST OF TARIFFS, not the country where the products are made.
The way it works, Trump’s Tariff Trick is actually A SALES TAX ON YOU. Estimates are that if Trump’s Tariff Trick becomes reality, it will cost the average American family almost $4,000 per year.
Foreign nations are laughing at Trump’s Tariff Trick because YOU, not them, will pay the price.
Don’t you wish you had taken Economics 101? Trump should have, too, because he either clearly doesn’t know how tariffs work…or he knows that you don’t.
(Click below to read what the conservative Cato Institute reports about tariffs.)
https://www.cato.org/publications/separating-tariff-facts-tariff-fictions
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the truly breathtaking thing to me is that I have not heard A SINGLE “JOURNALIST” call him out on this. Uneducated morons.
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Isn’t this the reason the Harris campaign has labeled Trump’s Tariff the Trump Salestax?
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BUT THEY ARE DOING A TERRIBLE JOB OF EXPLAINING THIS TO PEOPLE!!!! Here’s the script:
Donald Trump wants to be your president, again, but he is a PROFOUNDLY ignorant man. Here’s how ignorant he is. He has made putting tariffs on foreign goods the CENTERPIECE of his economic policy. He thinks that when we put tariffs on good from China, China pays them. But that’s just ignorance. China doesn’t pay the tariffs. The U.S. company importing the goods to the United States pays them. And then they increase the price of their product to pay for the tariff. So, YOU pay the tariffs.
Donald Trump used to be president, but he didn’t even learn this. He is PROFOUNDLY ignorant and a really slow learner.
You literally cannot afford to have this imbecile be president again. He hasn’t a clue what he is doing.
THEY NEED TO BE THIS BLUNT.
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