New numbers show everything that’s going wrong under Trump.
March 1, 2026, 2:26 p.mMarch 1, 2026, 2:26 p.m
niklaus vontobel / ch media
Donald Trump has promised Americans a “golden age.” He will “quickly reduce prices” and “make your land affordable again.” And, and, and. However, recently published statistics do not fit the Trumpian narrative at all.
Swings the golf club, not the customs hammer: US President Donald TrumpImage: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty
Consumers are not golden at all Moodas the University of Michigan survey shows: hardly better than during Corona times, worse than during the global financial crisis of 2008. This recession mood can probably be explained by the fact that Trump lied to consumers.
According to Trump, foreigners should have paid for the tariffs. The Americans would earn so much from it “that we won’t even know what to do with it Money.» But in one study The Kiel Institute for the World Economy says: “The Americans are paying the bill.”
Trump scores an “own goal” in customs policy
The Kiel Institute found out from 25 million American imports: The USA, i.e. its importers and consumers, almost alone pays the tariffs at 96 percent. They were only able to pass on 4 percent abroad. The conclusion of the study is devastating: “The tariffs are an own goal.”
For example, when Trump imposed punitive tariffs on India and Brazil, their exporters did not respond at all as Trump promised. They didn’t back down. They did not lower their prices to compete in the US market. According to the Kiel study, they did not deliver cheaper goods, just fewer.
According to another studythis time from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the US pays almost 90 percent of the tariffs. But Trump didn’t want to be lectured. Kevin Hassett, his chief economic adviser, instead called for a “Discipline».
“Everything is down,” Trump claimed in a speech, “everything has become cheaper.” That was simply a lie, prices continued to rise. Worse still, they have recently risen faster than under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, who allegedly left him a bad legacy, “the worst inflation in the history of the USA.”
It was in December 2025 inflation at 2.9 percent, in Biden’s last month it was 2.7 percent. So things have taken a turn for the worse under Trump. And this turn of events is worse than comparing the two monthly inflation rates suggests. Trump has done far more damage.
Trump punishes India on a whim
Under Biden, a trend towards falling inflation had begun. This was not thanks to the US president at the time, but to a global one normalization after the corona shock. Inflation would have fallen further if Trump had just spent his days on the golf course. Instead, he punished India with tariffs because its prime minister did not want to recommend him for the peace prize. And he imposed a 39 percent tariff on Switzerland because the then Federal President Karin Keller-Sutter “got on his nerves” on the phone.
In this way, Trump stopped the trend of falling prices and brought about a change for the worse. That’s why Americans now pay more for durable consumer goods like furniture, refrigerators and washing machines than they would without Trump’s capricious tariffs. Like the US economist Joseph Politano explainedthese consumer durables were before Corona and Trump constantly cheaperby about 2 percent annually. Under Trump’s chaotic tariff regime, they are becoming 2 percent more expensive every year.
The high prices really annoy Americans. Loud Surveys The “cost of living crisis” is by far the most important issue for them. And it’s the one where they give Trump the lowest approval ratings. The second most important thing to them is jobs. Trump had promised them more of them, even “millions and millions”. But he didn’t bring them job paradise on earth. If anything, he drove them out of it.
In 2024, the last year under his predecessor Biden, 1.5 million new jobs were created. The British magazine “The Economist” headlined in the fall: “The US economy is being watched by the whole world envied». But 2025, Trump’s first year, was just coming 181,000 jobs added. This is the lowest value in two decades outside of recession years.
More on tariffs and trade:
The largest trade deficit in US history
And these few jobs could be an illusion. According to Fed Governor Chris Waller, job statistics are currently skewed upwards and will likely turn negative with the next revision. As the “Financial Times» reports, by 2025 the economy will have grown, but jobs will have been lost. This has only happened three times since 1945.
That’s not enough of the embarrassment. This is what Trump said in his Speech to the nation of foreign investment commitments amounting to 18,000 billion dollars. The White House website only shows pledges of 9,000 billion. And the Petersen Institute reports in one studyit itself only found around 6000 billion. And even these promises are “unclear or rather wishful thinking”.
Trump has an “industrial renaissance” promised. The US has less today industrial jobs than before he took office. He wanted to eliminate the deficit in trade in physical goods, calling it a “national emergency.” 2025 was this deficit at $1,200 billion, larger than ever before in the history of the USA. Trump promised golden times – but they haven’t arrived yet. (aargauerzeitung.ch)