

Trump bets the economy on tariffs
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Public discontent with inflation and high prices more than anything else weakened support for Kamala Harris and opened the door to Donald Trump’s return. Throughout the campaign, Mr.
Trump hammered away at this vulnerability, promising that prices would come down in his second term. “Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again," Mr. Trump told attendees at a rally last August in Bozeman, Mont.
Although his plan was short on specifics, he gave the electorate every reason to believe he meant it. But six weeks after Mr. Trump took office, Americans were beginning to wonder whether he was serious about reducing prices.
A late February CBS News/YouGov poll found that while 80% of voters believed that he should make inflation a high priority, only 29% thought that he was doing so. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended Mr. Trump’s economic policies during a speech last week to the Economic Club of New York.
“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream," he said. Rather, the American dream means that “any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility and economic security." Mr. Bessent charged that proponents of multilateral trade deals had lost sight of this and that the deals they struck had worked to the disadvantage of the American people.
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